After-school study support centres, modelled on those run by the Prince’s Trust, are being set up in South Africa to raise the standard of children’s achievements.
Some 50 centres, where youngsters can go for help with their schoolwork, are planned to start in the next six months.
They will be funded by the Nations Trust, launched last year with help from the Prince’s Trust, whose president is Prince Charles.
More than Pounds 300,000 was raised by a Prince’s Trust concert at the Royal Albert Hall during South African president Nelson Mandela’s state visit to Britain last week. The cash will go into a fund for development projects for young people, including the study centres.
During his visit, Mr Mandela appealed for help from the UK and the international community in developing South Africa’s economy. He has often stressed the vital role of education.
In the UK, some 300 study support centres, run by schools and youth organisations, provide help for young people in disadvantaged areas.
The Nations Trust, launched during the Queen’s visit to South Africa last year, is aiming to help young people contribute to the country’s development following the advent of majority rule.
It has completed the first part of its programme, to encourage 18 to 29-year-olds to start businesses, and its representatives have visited Britain to look at the study centres.
Patrick Wintour, project director of the Nations Trust, said: “They were extremely interested to see that in Britain we suffer from the problem of motivating young people to study, and to see how we had developed this new way of stimulating an ethos of learning.
“We think we have a lot to learn from each other. Their experience is one of helping young people who are living in adverse circumstances. It should be just as interesting to us as our experiences are to them.”
