Buyane Primary, Mpumalanga, was one of the first schools selected to be part of the E3 pilot program. Buyane has since become a pioneer school in their dedication to project-based and student-centred learning, a school for which the E3 team has endless pride!
A market day with a difference
One project, which has since earned R10 000 in the Eskom Entrepreneurship Education Competition, centres around the traditional idea of Market Day, with a few adaptions that encourage learners to engage with their environments, devise ideas that would be sustainable and would inspire creative and critical thinking, without falling back on the classic but slightly tired tradition of selling sweets.
Context matters but “If it’s going to be it’s up to me!”
The school falls in the middle of a web of squatter camps and government housing, meaning that the staff needed to be creative in their task to include all the learners regardless of their financial background. The learners had the freedom, and with it the responsibility, to devise any business idea that would not only be accessible, but also helpful for their surrounding communities.
The groups were given an additional challenge in their projects: to use recycled materials in their products. The learners rose to the challenge with force.
Stepping up to the challenge
The learners created a multitude of products including hats, glasses, and bracelets, but one group particularly impressed the teachers with their creation of aprons out of plastic bags. They learned, not only the skills of manufacturing these products, but also their ability to be self-reliant, creative, confident, and collaborative.
The profits earned during the market day were used to purchase an Information board for the school, a board entirely sponsored by the learners.
Community Engagement and Celebration!
The EMS Provincial Coordinator and Subject Advisor suggested the school enter a competition created by Eskom and managed by the Education with Enterprise Trust (EWET) that endorses entrepreneurship in education.
Buyane Primary came third place in the competition, winning R10 000,00 for their school.
E3 could not be more proud of the students and teachers who flung themselves whole-heartedly into the ideology of the Active-Learning Pedagogy and we cannot wait to see what Buyani Primary, and schools much like it, will produce in the future.
