Update on the outreach high school day

I ran into one of the high school teachers from the LEAP school where I did outreach with my friends last Monday. I found out more about the school from him. He, himself, is an interesting person - an engineer who at ~45 (?) is doing a masters in physics, with a specialization in physics education research. He decided after a long industry career to go into teaching, and works at the school while doing his masters. A good guy.

The school is for people from the Townships (see my description in the Joburg post). They take youngsters who show promise in their schools, and send them on scholarship to summer camps. From the summer camps, they select the best in terms of doing well in school and leadership potential, and they offer scholarships to them for the LEAP high school.

It is a relatively new school, and funded by the government and by private agencies. Interestingly, the students at that school can no longer be considered "disadvantaged" for college like the ones I work with at UCT, because they have more money spent per person at the LEAP school. I wonder if in 4 years they can overcome the educational disadvantage they have from the Townships? They seem to be having success at the school, and the students were quite engaged in learning. It seemed they were all college-bound, at minimum. Some were even planning to go to UCT (the best school in southern africa if not beyond).

Pretty cool, huh?