Reflective Learning identifies learners’ math skill gaps to address SA's education crisis

Eugene Pelteret’s journey into education innovation is rooted in a passion to make a tangible difference in South Africa’s learning landscape. His path shifted away from the corporate world toward community development, where he spent years working with unemployed people, training and facilitating job placements.

It was during this time that he identified a critical stumbling block — many job seekers were held back by basic numeracy skills. This insight sparked his interest in addressing educational gaps, particularly in mathematics, at an earlier stage.

“It was exciting to be involved in something that could bring deep, scalable change,” Pelteret reflects. This blend of passion and purpose led to the founding of Reflective Learning eight years ago.

Cracking the code

Reflective Learning operates on a profound insight about the reality facing many South African learners: students struggling in current grades are often hindered by gaps in foundational knowledge accumulated over several years.

“It’s not the Grade 8 work they’re struggling with. It’s gaps from the previous seven years of schooling,” Pelteret said.

This reality affects roughly 60% of learners in the country, deeply undermining their ability to keep pace with expected curriculum standards.

Addressing this, Reflective Learning developed an innovative online platform designed to support teachers by pinpointing and remedying these persistent knowledge gaps through personalised, competency-based learning. Central to the model is a diagnostic system that assesses students’ mastery across 81 fundamental mathematics concepts that are critical up to Grade 9.

Pelteret likens the process to visiting a doctor: “If you go to a doctor and say, I’ve got a sore arm, they don’t just give you a generic pill, they work out what the root cause of the issue is. So this diagnostic assessment is just that, to work out the root causes of somebody struggling across these 81 concepts.”

Once gaps are identified, the platform delivers personalised lessons tailored to each learner’s specific needs, sometimes reaching back to Grade 1 level concepts if necessary. The lessons are primarily text and image-based, a design choice driven by practical concerns of accessibility.

“When Covid hit and everyone was trying to do Zoom calls, but bandwidth issues and data costs made technology difficult in South Africa. You need something that is low bandwidth and adds to the accessibility factor,” said Pelteret. 

Reflective Learning avoids procedural drills. Instead, it uses explicit instruction, teaching concepts in a holistic and multi-method approach. 

“Long division might be something you struggle with, but there might be five ways to do division. Let’s actually teach you all of those ways, because if you understand all of those ways, then you’re more likely to understand the concept of dividing numbers,” he said. 

Empowering teachers, lifting students

Teachers in South Africa face immense challenges, often grappling with overwhelming workloads amid large, diverse classes. 

“A Grade 8 teacher might have 100 to 200 students, all with different gaps,” Pelteret said, highlighting the staggering scale of responsibility in a single classroom. For educators, the daily tension between delivering the current curriculum and addressing a backlog of foundational deficits creates a near-impossible balancing act, often leaving them stretched too thin.

This burden is part of a broader systemic strain: recent studies reveal that about 50% of South African teachers are considering leaving the profession due to excessive workloads and stress, exacerbated by administrative demands and emotional strain.

Read more: Breaking Point — why half of South Africa’s teachers are ready to walk away

Reflective Learning offers a vital support system that lightens this load. The platform takes on the complex task of remediating past learning gaps so that teachers can focus on their core role of teaching the prescribed curriculum. 

“Our tool takes off half the pressure by dealing with past gaps, while teachers teach the curriculum,” Pelteret said, adding that this strategic division of labour not only alleviated teacher burden but accelerated student progression more effectively than traditional catch-up methods. 

Pricing for Reflective Learning varies and those interested can get a quote on the website. 

Bridging the digital divide

Reflective Learning actively works to bridge the entrenched digital divide by forming trusted partnerships with schools, communities, governments, corporates and nonprofits. These alliances enable the provision not only of the platform’s software but also the essential devices and ICT infrastructure needed to make learning possible.

“We can’t expect a technology-based programme to thrive without the right infrastructure; this means that alongside the software solution, hardware support and reliable internet connectivity are critical,” he said. 

Pelteret recognises that the digital divide remains one of the biggest hurdles in South African education, especially in rural and township areas. 

“Corporates have been generous in providing the technology and infrastructure, and it’s about partnering with schools and communities to build trusted relationships. Without all these pieces in place, the programme can’t succeed,” he said.

Corporate social investment plays a vital role in this ecosystem, providing resources and funding to extend access to schools that cannot afford such programs independently. 

 “Our aim is to bring equal education to South Africa, and that means making sure the programme reaches those who need it most,” said Pelteret. 

Currently, Reflective Learning partners with about 350 schools across South Africa. Building deep, trusted relationships within a busy and complex education ecosystem requires patience, ongoing effort and alignment among many actors. 

“There’s lots of passion in this space, but each organisation can have its own approach. Part of the challenge is cutting through that complexity and building real, trusted partnerships between government departments, corporate sponsors, nonprofit organisations and schools,” Pelteret said. 

Measuring impact and celebrating success

Reflective Learning tackles the critical question of educational impact with a rigorous, data-driven approach that prioritises continuous assessment. Every student entering the programme begins with a baseline diagnostic test designed to unearth specific learning gaps across 81 essential mathematics concepts.

This thorough initial diagnosis forms the foundation of a tailored learning journey. As students progress, ongoing assessments measure their mastery of these concepts, offering a personalised roadmap to catching up with grade-level expectations.

“We’re not just assessing once and hoping for the best; we continuously track progress to ensure every learner is moving forward,” said Pelteret. 

By continuously gathering detailed internal data, Reflective Learning cross-references this information with students’ school marks and subject choices, creating a holistic picture of academic advancement that goes beyond mere test scores.

Read more: Go figure — alarming number of SA schools no longer offer maths as a subject

One of Pelteret’s most compelling stories of success comes from a partnership with a group of 20 primary and five high schools serving lower-income communities. Over time, thousands of students using the platform have made remarkable gains. 

“Students had caught up to the point of being one-and-a-half to two years ahead of their peers elsewhere in the country,” he said, illustrating the programme’s ability to scale impact from the individual learner to entire school communities.

“The regular assessments help us adapt the content and support to each student’s evolving needs, making learning more effective and tailored,” he said. 

The shift to digital learning, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, presented both exciting opportunities and significant challenges for education in South Africa. 

“Simply providing access to technology does not guarantee that students will engage or improve,” said Pelteret.

To address this, Reflective Learning employs a proactive monitoring system that tracks student logins, time spent on lessons, and task completion rates to identify potential issues of motivation and retention early on. Each school partnering with Reflective Learning benefits from the support of a dedicated school success manager, working closely with educators to optimise platform usage and overcome barriers such as connectivity outages or competing demands on students’ time. 

“This personalised support system ensures that technology becomes a practical tool for learning, rather than just an inaccessible platform,” he said. 

A vision of hope

Pelteret has a profound sense of hope. Despite statistics showing many students lagging behind by up to four years in mathematics understanding, his experience and data underscore that catching up is not only possible, but achievable at scale.

“There’s data, stories and teacher feedback that prove students can overcome these deficits,” Pelteret said.

He speaks passionately about the transformation they’ve witnessed: “What began as a local South African initiative has grown into a global endeavour, tackling educational inequities that reach far beyond our borders.”

Pelteret’s message is unwaveringly clear: there are homegrown, scalable solutions crafted from a deep understanding of South Africa’s unique challenges, designed to empower both teachers and students alike. DM