Sumbandila Full Scholarships
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The Full Scholarships are a programme for those scholars who have been selected, from backgrounds of extreme poverty, on the basis of academic achievement and outstanding potential, for full bursary support. It is a residential programme based on the curriculum offered at Ridgeway College, a small but highly academically successful independent school. The school programme is buttressed by mentorship programmes, guidance, additional lessons, the development of entrepreneurial skills and educational trips. This is balanced with the recognition of the need for the children to keep close ties with their families, friends and communities of origin. Scholars go home for three weekends out of four and spend the school holidays with their families. Arrangements are made for the orphans to spend time with relatives and other local families.
Ridgeway College was identified as the first school to be involved because it is within reasonable distance of the children’s homes, because it is a small school with an excellent record of academic achievement, a good ethnic and cultural mix among learners and an ethos, tradition and capacity for seeing each learner as an individual. And because, by comparison with other private schools, its fees are reasonably low.
The Full Scholarships are an expensive programme - school fees, boarding and lodging, medical care, clothing, transport costs to and from home, books, furniture, extra lessons, educational trips and the salaries of two house mothers. Potential donors are entitled to ask whether the money could not be better used by spreading it more widely to benefit far more children attending far less expensive public schools while living at home. However, both the personal experience of the trustees and wider trends make it clear that Sumbandila cannot restrict itself merely to offering access to good schools, to a good academic education at secondary level. Statistics show that:
“11% of black students who enrolled at contact universities in 2000 completed science degrees in three years, compared with 35% for whites. For business and management degrees, the rates were 11% and 43% respectively and for the social sciences 14% and 43%. 22% of all contact university students drop out in the first year.” (Centre for Higher Education Development, University of Cape Town, 2008)
The sociological and historical reasons underlying this situation are complex and varied but the message is clear: Sumbandila cannot be satisfied with the aim of enabling our students to achieve university entrance -although this is obviously our first objective. We have to equip them for success at university and in their future careers. Sumbandila has to be much more than a programme awarding scholarships: it has to be a way of life.
Nine girls were selected (from over 400 applicants) for the Sumbandila Full Scholarships in December 2007. The criteria for selection were based on academic ability, outstanding potential and desperate economic need. The girls were admitted to the first year of secondary studies at Ridgeway College in January 2008 and accommodated in a house nearby. All nine have made excellent academic progress and have grown in skills and confidence to an extraordinary degree. Today we have 19 children enrolled at Ridgeway and accommodated in two adjoining houses. The original nine children are now in their third year of high school, eight are in their second year and two are in their first year. In addition Ridgeway College has enrolled five children identified through the Sumbandila testing and offered them 50% bursaries due to their parents low income. Three of these children are subsidised by Sumbandila and live together with the full scholars.
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