Of the 2.8 million South Africans between the ages of 18 and 24 who were not in education, employment or
training in 2007, 2 million had not matriculated (SNRI, 2009).
IkamvaYouth drives social change in South Africa by enabling disadvantaged learners to lift each other out of
poverty and into tertiary education and/or employment. Volunteer tutors (many previously beneficiaries of the
programme themselves) provide after-school supplementary tutoring, career guidance, mentoring and
computer literacy training free of charge to learners from township schools in grades 8 to 12. Established in
Khayelitsha in 2003, the low-cost, high-impact model has been implemented with remarkable results in
seven townships in three provinces.
IkamvaYouth provides after-school support to learners in grades 8 to12 three times a week, as well as
intensive two- week holiday programmes. Learners self-select and enroll in grades 8 to 11. There are no
academic requirements for entry, but learners need to meet a minimum 75% attendance in order to keep
their place in the programme.
Learners drive the learning agenda by bringing questions and problems for small group discussion (tutor:
learner ratio is 1:5). The pedagogical approach aims to instill a culture of hard work, peer-learning and
responsibility.
IkamvaYouth has a democratic youth-led structure.Each branch’s management committee (branchcom) is
voted annually and everyone (including parents, partner organisations, learners, community leaders) is
welcome to participate in biweekly meetings where decision-making is transparent and inclusive.
This has led to community ownership and support of the project, and enabled the beneficiaries of the project
to become its leaders. This youth-centred decision-making model builds participants’ leadership capacity and
work experience.
Matric results have consistently far-exceeded nationalaverages annually since 2005. This is particularly
significant given that learners attend poor-performing township schools and make more difficult subject
choices. Learners are almost twice as likely to select Maths and Physics (Van der Berg, 2012) than the
national averages and yet 44% achieve Bachelor passes. Nationally, only 11.5% of black matriculants
achieved exemption or bachelor passes between 2005 and 2008 (National Assembly, 2006 & Snyman,
2011).
The General Household Survey found that only 4,2% of South Africans aged 18 to 29 were enrolled at higher
education institutions. Whereas 17,4% of white youth were enrolled at university, this was true for only 3,1%
of black Africans and 3,5% of coloured persons.
IkamvaYouth supports learners as they learn about, apply to, secure financial aid for, and enroll in
universities, universities of technology, learnerships, internships and jobs. Between 2005 and 2011, 66% of
the programme’s 403 matriculants have enrolled in tertiary institutions. Overall, 77% of IkamvaYouth’s
matriculants since 2005 have enrolled in education, a learnership or a job 2.5 months following matriculation.
IkamvaYouth’s programmes enable its learners to achieve opportunities that will significantly increase their
earning potential. This is achieved at a very low cost by leveraging strategic partnerships and volunteerism.
With public libraries, tertiary institutions and community centres providing free access to venues and
infrastructure and volunteers responsible for all programme delivery, the overall expenditure per
IkamvaYouth learner per year is under R5000. The programme’s sustainability is ensured by the matrics who
become volunteers, transforming from beneficiaries into benefactors. In 2012, volunteers will provide over 3
million rands’ worth of tutoring, career guidance mentoring, computer literacy training and workshop
facilitation to over 700 learners.
Tertiary education institutions can make the following important contributions to enable the model's further
scale: (i) Providing course credits to students for committed, regular volunteerism; (ii) Waiving application
and registration fees for committed learners and volunteer tutors; (iii) Availing campuses for holiday
programmes; (iv) Connecting the alumni of IkamvaYouth with on-campus support offerings; and (v)
Conducting research.