DISTRESS SIGNALS, PART ONE
UCT Online High School is a ‘sinking ship’, say insiders and parents
UCT Online High School opened its virtual doors in January 2022, promising to be a game-changer for basic education in South Africa and capitalising on our desire to make education more inclusive. Today, the bubble of praise and excitement has somewhat deflated, with parents and teachers raising alarm about the myriad problems experienced at the school in its first year of operation. The fundamental problem, they say, is that the school has failed to deliver on many of its selling points, resisting any internal and external scrutiny of how its students are faring, and offering a product which has negatively affected students.
Read our entire coverage of the UCT Online High School:
- PART ONE: UCT Online High School is a ‘sinking ship’, say insiders and parents
- PART TWO: UCT Online High School — ‘shocking marking’ after grading outsourced
- PART THREE: UCT Online High School — fears over opaque restructuring plans and lack of academic support
When the announcement was made in July 2021 that the University of Cape Town (UCT) had launched an online high school in partnership with the Valenture Institute in a bid “to revolutionise basic education in Africa”, the project was met with much initial fanfare and praise.
The brainchild of UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng and Valenture Institute CEO, Robert Paddock, the initiative was peddled as a “high school for all”, promising to be “the most affordable private school” in the country which would disrupt the basic education sector.
Rob Paddock, CEO and founder of Valenture Institute. (Photo: Valenture institute / Pablo Toureiro)
Applications for UCT Online High School opened on 21 July 2021. Paddock – who has a 15-year relationship with the university through his previous company GetSmarter, which offers online short courses through top universities – was reported as saying close to 1,700 applications were received within the first six days of the launch.
The launch of the online school came on the back of Covid-19 learning disruptions, and coincided with an increase in enrolments at several online schools in South Africa. The spike in enrolments at various online schools also followed the Department of Basic Education’s publication of a draft guiding framework for virtual schooling, which the department labelled a priority, as virtual schools have been operating unregistered for several years without adequate policy guidance.
UCT Online High School (UCTOHS) is part of UCTs Vision 2030 to create new ways to approach South Africa’s complex problems, one of which is to “to advance holistic, innovative future-oriented education”. In terms of running the school, UCT and Valenture Institute have a shared governance structure with Vice-Chancellor Phakeng as chair of the oversight committee which is responsible for academic quality assurance, governance and overall management of the school.
Selling points
In interviews with Daily Maverick conducted over the past months, several parents recalled the selling points that had convinced them to register their children at UCT Online High School. With its private school status and annual fees of R26,340, the school was an attractive option to many families who were looking for what was pegged as quality education at an affordable rate.
UCT unveils ‘most affordable’ online private secondary school coupled with public access curriculum
Additionally, many parents described choosing UCTOHS because it said it would give children individual support and attention; would commit to monitoring their progress and grades and keep them on track; and address gaps after mastery checks – which ensured that learners mastered the previous module before progressing to the next one.
“They made it sound like my child wasn’t just going to be part of the system; if they see that they struggle, they will pull them aside and provide that help. That hasn’t happened; I actually believe that is the opposite. My child was left to struggle on her own,” said Lee-Ann van Wyk, whose daughter is in Grade 8 at UCTOHS.
While some parents who spoke to Daily Maverick said they were initially sceptical about the impact moving to an online school would have on their children’s social lives, they were sold by the emphasis the school placed on building a vibrant, social community and its range of extracurricular clubs and activities offered.
“At the start of the year we were all obviously very hopeful, it was all positive and what was being said and sold seemed promising,” said Van Wyk.
Wendy Singo, whose son is also in Grade 8 at the school, told Daily Maverick that some of the things that UCTOHS had promised in terms of social life, including meet-ups in each region, had not been delivered on.
“As parents we decided to do it ourselves,” she said. “We were hoping that was going to come from the school which was one of the things they highlighted being that we shouldn’t worry about our children’s social life.”
Teachers, who spoke to Daily Maverick on the strict condition of anonymity, described how they had bought into the dream the company was selling; to revolutionise basic education in South Africa.
Hooked on the prospect of “changing the face of education”, many left senior teaching positions, took substantial pay cuts and lost benefits to invest in this dream “of making education accessible and giving learners who are not in privileged areas privileged education”, one said.
“We were all very invested in the vision the company sold us when we started. It was all about the learner is the centre; on repeat,” another teacher told Daily Maverick.
Read more in Daily Maverick: “The jury is out on whether UCT’s online high school will democratise learning”
Failure to deliver
However, over the course of several months, accounts of UCTOHS’s conduct from both employees and guardians share a common narrative: the school has fundamentally failed to deliver on many of its selling points, resisting any internal and external scrutiny of how its students are faring, and offering a product which, they say, has negatively affected students.
“I feel like they sold lies. Their methodology may look good on paper, but the implementation is just not there. I feel like a guinea pig; like I’m being used as their test subject,” said Wendy Singo, whose son is also in Grade 8 at the school.
Other parents who spoke to Daily Maverick over the past months described feeling “robbed”, “cheated” and as though they had fallen for “false advertising”.
They cited technical glitches on the learning platforms which persisted over the past months; a lack of support and transparency from the school; and raised concerns about learners’ dismal academic performance.
“I feel that they kind of bit off more than they could chew, and they just couldn’t offer the support that was being promised,” said Van Wyk.
All of the parents we spoke to were trying to remove their children from UCTOHS and get them either into brick-and-mortar schools or other online high schools. However, because of the poor grades reflected on their children’s report cards, many were struggling to get them into other schools.
“I’m really hoping by some miracle, she can pass. Just so that all the sacrifices didn’t feel like a waste. But I’ve also prepared her that if she does fail, it doesn’t define her, it was just one of those things we took a chance on. But then we’re still in this terrible predicament where I can’t apply for her to redo Grade 8 at a traditional school because there isn’t enough space,” said Van Wyk.
“The best I can do is if she passes, I go beg a school to take her… But if she fails there’s just no way. If I don’t get my daughter into a school and we’re forced to stay here, it’s literally going to be against our will until we get something else.”
‘Crippling anxiety’
All the parents Daily Maverick spoke to said their children were experiencing levels of crippling anxiety or depression, partly brought on by the school’s online platform which they described as anxiety-inducing and not at all user-friendly.
“We couldn’t accurately monitor our children’s progress. Our portal and our children’s portal dashboards never looked the same. As an example, my son would finish something and it would update on his site, but on my site it would take ages until it showed it was completed,” said Singo.
“This is one of the things we cried over.”
Some parents told Daily Maverick that their children were constantly behind with the workload, despite completing tests and submitting assignments on time. When they queried this with the school, they say they struggled to get concrete answers on the reasons why their children appeared to be falling so far behind.
“My biggest gripe was that they have these circles that show [learners] progress and, based on where they’re at, it will either be green, orange or red. My daughter’s was constantly red, because she was constantly behind. The mental toll was horrific – for an entire week she was just crying,” said Van Wyk.
Several teachers told Daily Maverick that they were speaking about the mess unfolding behind the scenes because they hoped to warn parents who were considering sending their children to UCTOHS in the future.
The teachers we interviewed were scared to speak out and spoke to Daily Maverick on condition of anonymity because, they said, they feared for their careers and because of certain provisions in their contracts. The company’s decisions and instructions for teachers to retain specific information from guardians, they said, had affected the morale among staff. They could not in good conscience stay silent.
Guilt over harm to students
Many expressed guilt and regret over not having said or done more. And many felt complicit in the harm caused to students.
“The product that has been offered to students this year has negatively affected them. It’s not taking their needs and interests into account,” one teacher told Daily Maverick.
The same teacher said, “decisions have been made by management throughout the course of the year to basically change what was initially offered to students. The issue with that was that teachers have said throughout the year that the changes must make for a much better student experience at the institution, but our concerns were never seriously regarded by management.”
Grade 12 will launch in 2023. And the school plans to introduce a series of restructuring measures, which UCT Online insiders warn will not address the problems faced by students this year.
In the words of a teacher: “This is a sinking ship, and the kids are going to suffer.”
Teachers say that many learners have slipped through the cracks this year due to massive class sizes, and not enough academic support. When “mastery checks” fell away, it became nearly impossible to track the progress of each individual.
For most high schoolers, self-discipline does not come naturally, and the teachers who spoke to Daily Maverick noted that accountability and self-discipline are even more of a challenge within the online learning environment.
“It has been suggested that because attendance in the live, online teaching sessions has been poor, they are no longer a priority. Thus far, UCTOHS has not harnessed the benefits of online gamification to incentivise learners. They have failed to implement a system of accountability to support student engagement,” said one teacher.
Blame
The teachers Daily Maverick spoke to, claim that with nearly every problem raised by students and guardians, the company has been quick to transfer the blame onto the teachers.
“Something that the company has been doing from the get-go is transferring the blame, for all of this – technical glitches or something they didn’t account for – they shifted the blame to the teachers.”
“There are many learners who have posted on social media that they are being crippled by anxiety. They blame the teachers – while we’ve been advocating and fighting for them since the beginning,” said one teacher.
In response to questions from Daily Maverick, UCT Online High School claimed that the “large majority of parents and guardians are happy with the progress of their learners”.
“These opinions are the views of a small number of parents and guardians who have engaged with us on their dedicated Facebook page, or who have lodged complaints through our formal complaints process,” it said.
On the technical issues with the online portal and the app linked to the school’s online platform, cited by guardians, the school said: “There were some initial technical issues at the beginning of the year involving the specialised third-party application that we use for online invigilation (which is also used by many other reputable academic institutions).
Many of these have now been resolved although it is inevitable that some learners will find the use of new and unfamiliar digital applications challenging.” DM
Read our entire coverage of the UCT Online High School:
- PART ONE: UCT Online High School is a ‘sinking ship’, say insiders and parents
- PART TWO: UCT Online High School — ‘shocking marking’ after grading outsourced
- PART THREE: UCT Online High School — fears over opaque restructuring plans and lack of academic support
In response to Daily Maverick’s questions, UCT Online High School requested that we include all of the information it provided. We have included it as a PDF below because we feel it is important for the public to be informed about all of the allegations Daily Maverick put to the institution, and its respective responses. Additionally, UCT Online High School denied some of Daily Maverick’s findings. We stand by our reporting.
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Disappointing article. Where are the views of the teachers, parents and learners who may be perfectly happy with the school, or a response from Rob Paddock? We are presented with a very one sided picture – I prefer to be able to make up my own mind once I have been presented with both sides of the story.
Caveat emptor….
Dear Jonathan
I would refer you to The Village FB page, with 47k parents, where for months hundreds of parents have been highlighting these problems. Our own Cambridge Academy (Chapel Lane) first took calls from frantic parents after the same team behind UCT Online let them down midyear 2022 with the St Stithians Online School. Then the UCT Online parents started looking for alternatives too…
It appears to us that they have a clash of two cultures: well-meaning, overworked teachers who join (and often leave when they see what is happening) on the one side, while the hard-selling sales team chase every learner irrespective of whether the promised service can be delivered. We have spoken to parents where their child has not had a teacher in some subjects for several months. This is just sheer greed. And it comes at the expense of the children’s learning and future.
GetSmarter is a similar travesty. Our 19 year old daughter did a course through LSE at an astronomical price this year. Main topic Globalization. Yet, during the most vibrant rethink of the rules of the global political economy post the Russian invasion of Ukraine, materials were just recycled content of some important Prof who she never saw, dated circa 2017!!!
The future of education is indeed online. Yet, online also allows highly personalised service. Education cannot be this kind of mass product (The prior Valenture website made reference to ‘big hairy goals” of 100,000 learners.)
Dr Charl du Plessis
This is the first article of three, all of which are available online today. The subsequent two articles contain much of the detail of the allegations as well as response from UCT High School.
Yes Jonathan, you are quite right. So I asked a senior member of GetSmarter (which I presume can be seen as the precursor to the school) who left the company recently, for their opinion (after I spent R11k on a fintech course for my wife – embarrassing content). This was their response: “Great business model. Shit product”. However, this is anecdotal and I probably only remember this because of the guilt I felt making my wife suffer through this garbage. The future of education is online – they’re a bright bunch of people – give them time and they’ll get smarter (excuse the pun) and make it right. You must also remember that both the supplier and the consumer are in new territory – so the chances of customer satisfaction are substantially less in this early stage. So, yes, judgement needs to be postponed for now. I like your question, so a survey of the full population would be appropriate. However, you must remember (if you’re old enough) that less than 10% of consumers were dissatisfied with New Coke – in the end it affected the 100% and New Coke is no longer.
The university is a tertiary educational institution. It cannot pretend to be what it isn’t and if it does it will in all likelihood crash and burn. Leave secondary, primary and pre primary education to those whose field of expertise it is. If your culture cannot, or is incapable of, preparing you for a western tertiary education, change or modify your culture, don’t shoehorn the education system to fit, or submit to, your culture. That is an injustice and crime against humanity. If your culture dictates that you need a specific style of education, at any level, then create and evolve your own cultural specific education system that takes into account. It can accommodate any cultural sensitivities, and biases, that you may deem appropriate. Why impose your cultural biases on a system that’s apparently, by your own admission is not suitable for, or been evolved for your cultural sensitivities. Leave cultural institutions that don’t suit your culture alone. Don’t appropriate and then try change them. Take the opportunity to establish your own, be a proud culture and not a parasitic, lazy, opportunistic one that steals, and destroys, from others. Or is that not a viable option…
Wow! I didn’t see culture mentioned at all in this article. Have I missed something. Or is it irrelevant as I suspect?
I wouldn’t have touched this with a barge pole. Did a GetSmarter course a while ago – a joke; run by somebody in private business in Natal. UCT value-add was nil – I suspect it’s a bogus arrangement to puff up their activities for impressionable people.
why is it whether online or in traditional systems – its always the teachers fault.
teachers are already overworked, underpaid and have to carry on giving more and more of their time.
whatsapp and digital comms mean they never really leave the classroom as it is,
an online school is not a massively technical challenge – its a massive people challenge.
Rob Paddock full of smiles? When is he responding?
I found myself disappointed with this series of articles. I felt they were intent on making the story an exposé, complete with cliched greed-driven villain and victims. Except the evidence supporting this seems tenuous or unclear. The source of the negative sentiment seems to be some disgruntled people, which may or may not be representative. To me it doesn’t exclude the possibility that the Valentine Institute and UCTOHS are taking on an innovative and ambitious project to make a meaningful contribution to improving our utterly catastrophic education system in SA, doing so on a commercially sustainable basis at a much lower price point than most private schools, and experiencing some significant teething problems doing this at scale in their first year of delivery. The market will ultimately judge if they’re successful. Maybe we should welcome these sorely needed initiatives rather than cancel them so readily. I would have found an article exploring the trade-offs between using technology to deliver education at scale for a discounted price and educational outcomes to be more interesting and maybe more responsible.
I agree. But maybe they should have started with a smaller group and then systematically grow as the initiative’s strengths are realised and improved upon and weaknesses addressed in time for the next year. That way one eats the elephant one mouthful at a time.