Valenture and UCT partner to launch UCT Online High School

Covid-19 has seen countries across the globe embrace e-learning as the new normal. While leading education institutions around the world launch online secondary school branches to meet this growing demand, Africa has stalled on this front, until now.

Admissions are now open for 2022

Cape Town-based edtech Valenture Institute and the University of Cape Town announced the opening of admissions to the UCT Online High School. Classes begin in January 2022.

UCT Online High School opens admissions

“At UCT, we see first-hand how matriculants who have received a compromised basic education struggle to catch up in our classes – even with academic support, bridging programmes, extended degree programmes and the like. We’ve also seen the bleak prospects of those South Africans who lack a matric or tertiary certificate, and the far-reaching impact this has on them as individuals, their communities and our economy as a whole,” said UCT Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng at the launch press conference.

“We’re delighted and humbled to partner with UCT on this ground-breaking initiative,” said Valenture CEO Robert Paddock in a statement.

The school will combine SA’s grade 8-12 CAPS curriculum guidelines with Valenture’s proprietary learning technology, analytics and existing student support functions. Learners pace themselves through the platform’s self-discipline model and receive quality one-on-one sessions with expert teachers and support coaches – for only R 2 095 a month. 

For those unable to afford fees, the curriculum has been made available to the general public at the Open UCT Online High School portal. “Open UCT Online High School is a free online learning platform for all high school teachers and learners in SA. That’s free forever, on the same platform that fee-paying learners are using. Our objective for the open platform is that it acts as a valuable educational resource to multiple stakeholders in the sector, and enables others to embed innovative, scalable, high-quality solutions into their education,” said Paddock.

Babalwa Ngonyama, UCT Chair of Council stated, “I am proud of the work that the UCT executive, under the leadership of Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, have done to set this exciting new school up for success. I have every confidence that the school will deliver on its objectives of serving learners across the country with excellent high school education.”

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Featured image: UCT Online High School learners via Darryn Lee (Supplied)