Future Learning Institute equips students for career success with innovative support

There has been much fanfare with the release of the 2024 National Senior Certificate matric results with a pass rate of 87.3%, boasting the country’s highest since the dawn of democracy. However, dismal statistics accompany these results, telling a chilling reality of the state of education currently in South Africa.

“The results are misleading: The true matric pass rate is much lower, pointing to an education system that is jeopardising the future of our young people,” explains Roger Solomons, acting spokesperson of Build One South Africa.

“Of the 1.2 million learners who began school in grade 1 in 2013, just 615 00 have passed matric in 2024 – a true pass rate of just 51%. This means over 590 000 young people didn’t make it.”

Christo Nicholls – founder and CEO of the Future Learning Institute (FLi), and full-time lecturer at Stellenbosch University from May 2019 to April 2024 – shares his first-hand experience that up to 40% of all first-year engineering students do not complete their degrees within the original course duration at point of registration, highlighting a critical issue that many students who start their tertiary journey do not complete it. Hence, the real problem statement becomes an excessive focus on getting into tertiary institutions, opposed to completing the courses started at tertiary institutions, he says.

This begs the question: what is a possible solution hypothesis to successfully arrest this issue of non-completion or low throughput post-secondary schooling level?

Nicholls, in conjunction with his wife Miriam, launched the Future Learning Institute in August 2022 to provide an alternative educational journey that assists future decision-makers with:

• A paradigm of having a clear view on the societal role they want to fulfil as their departing point. So, before a learner thinks of studies, for them to first unpack the question: what do they want to do with their life, or where do they want to start their own independent journey as an adult?
• Designing an academic journey that complements their future state of existence. Meaning they only embed themselves in academic activities that explicitly speak to what they actually want to do.
• Understanding that university is not the only route to a desired future; however, if university is part of it, just cultivating the required skills to not only start at university but successfully complete the courses for which you registered. One of these skills is the art of mastering content for the sake of understanding it and effectively applying it.

In summary, creating a way that helps learners master the educational skills they need in order to make their career dreams a reality, and help alleviate this ‘revolving door syndrome’ at many South African universities.

The FLi is a proactive, journey-based online institute that provides students with an alternative journey to obtain their matric certification.

“We’re an institution that offers a support structure that looks like a school, that feels like a school, but it’s not a school, a micro school or even a type of homeschooling. It’s literally a qualification preparation journey offering,” explains Nicholls.

The FLi caters for a variety of youngsters: those who find themselves overwhelmed by the workload in the current school system (often due to the design of the CAPS curriculum), learners who struggle to find a place in high school (with so many high schools being oversubscribed) and those whose parents who are looking for an education system that fits around their child’s schedule.

Nicholls explains that the latter group of learners are often already on an alternative learning journey, as they have chosen to specialise in a particular sport or cultural activity at a national level, so struggle to fit into a prescriptive schooling system.

Says Nicholls, “In Namibia, the education system is such that Grade 11s need to meet a certain level of understanding of their subject content in order to progress to Grade 12. As a result, there’s a large number of Grade 11s who need to rewrite their Grade 11 (Namibia Senior Secondary Certificate) exams and improve their results to prepare them for further study options.”

To meet these needs, the FLi offers specifically designed services to cater for those Namibian students who wish to achieve exam readiness and fluency, as well as ace their in-depth assessments. They are given the flexibility to study online or in-person.

The Future Learning Institute is all about mastering the content, that is, has the learner achieved what they need for their future?

Image credit: Freepik