Beacon Hill Secondary School is one of 85 schools in the township of Mitchells Plain, 30 kms from Cape Town’s Central Business District with a population of about 350 000 people. In the last census, only 35% of those older than 20 had completed schooling to grade 12 and unemployment was at 24%. The Beacon Hill pilot project was in partnership with the Western Cape Education Department, with a cohort of 27 grade 9 learners from a representative range of backgrounds and prior academic attainment. Before joining the programme, 82% of learners in the cohort had not used a laptop or computer. For this pilot, Beacon Hill made a disused storeroom available, which was converted into a home base where learners had the support of a resident coach; all teaching was online, and learners were free to study from the home base, at home, or elsewhere. 

Six weeks after our school was launched, the COVID pandemic disrupted education everywhere.  Despite this, our learners showed consistent improvements in grades, and mid-year examinations in April and May 2021 showed improvements in class averages in 5 of 6 subjects, with the sharpest increases seen in Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. For Mathematics, the proportion of learners achieving above 40% tripled (from 17% of learners to 50% of learners). For Science, this proportion more than doubled (from 42% to 86%) and for Social Sciences this proportion nearly tripled (from 33% to 88%). 

Following this successful pilot, the iBhodi Trust microschool has been incorporated with UCT Online High School.

Officially launched in January 2022 with 15 grade 8 learners, the Imbeleko Academy is located in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in KwaZulu-Natal, where it has become a symbol of hope and a model for effective blended learning.

Now serving 55 learners across three grades, Imbeleko Academy has shown that with dedicated champions, proper infrastructure, and strategic partnerships, online education can reach those who need it most. UCT Online High School provides the entire academic programme online, while the on-site staff create a supportive ecosystem. This includes care, well-being support, after-school activities, and community engagement. The academy also offers various digital after-school programmes to learners from neighbouring schools, helping close gaps in Maths, Science, and English while running coding projects to benefit the broader community.

Plans are underway to replicate this successful blended learning model to establish a framework for other communities to create similar Associate Centres, thus expanding this unique and effective approach to more regions.

The iBhodi Trust’s Learning Liberated Scholarship and Bursary Programme was launched the following year to enable learners from low income families to realise their full potential through online learning at UCT Online High School.

The programme offers partial scholarships and or bursaries to make education more accessible to a diverse range of learners who may not afford the full tuition. This approach allows for more efficient distribution of financial aid, supporting a larger number of learners with available funds. Additionally, funding through donations and philanthropy increases support for the programme, as donors can see their tangible impact on multiple learners. Partial scholarships/bursaries also foster a sense of commitment among recipients to maintain academic performance, leading to higher success rates. Furthermore, this financial assistance helps learners and their families manage education costs.