* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    3 Arts Entertainment Expands Into News With Acquisition of OManagement (Exclusive) – The Hollywood Reporter

    3 Arts Entertainment Expands Into News With Acquisition of OManagement (Exclusive) – The Hollywood Reporter

    Leading Proxy Advisory Firm Glass Lewis Recommends Shareholders Vote “FOR” Both of PENN Entertainment’s Director Nominees on the WHITE Proxy Card – Business Wire

    Glass Lewis Urges Shareholders to Support All PENN Entertainment Director Nominees on the WHITE Proxy Card

    Cisco Partners with Monumental Sports & Entertainment to Power New D.C. Arena – Cisco Newsroom

    Cisco Teams Up with Monumental Sports & Entertainment to Revolutionize the New D.C. Arena Experience

    Middle Eastern Entertainment Headlines at 5:49 a.m. GMT – Yahoo

    Exciting Updates from the Middle Eastern Entertainment Scene!

    Ceramic Dalmatian Entertainment is WLAF’s Business of the Week – WLAF

    Spotlight on Success: Ceramic Dalmatian Entertainment Shines as This Week’s Featured Business!

    Brass Lion Entertainment unveils co-op action RPG Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver – VentureBeat

    Unleash Your Inner Warrior: Discover the Co-Op Action RPG Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Russian Scientists Develop Sub-Ångström Technology for Next-Gen Quantum Processors – The Quantum Insider

    Russian Scientists Pioneer Sub-Ångström Technology to Revolutionize Next-Gen Quantum Processors

    Study uncovers SiPore Technology’s capacity to regulate blood glucose levels – Nutraceutical Business Review

    Study uncovers SiPore Technology’s capacity to regulate blood glucose levels – Nutraceutical Business Review

    SunHydrogen Unveils Large Hydrogen Reactor in Houston – Fuel Cells Works

    SunHydrogen Launches Groundbreaking Large-Scale Hydrogen Reactor in Houston

    Technology, Labor Rights, and Political Power in Kenya and Across Africa – Tech Policy Press

    How Technology is Shaping Labor Rights and Political Power Across Africa

    Reeves to Announce £86 Billion for Science and Technology in Spending Review – Bloomberg

    Reeves Set to Unveil Groundbreaking £86 Billion Investment in Science and Technology!

    Innovation at Scale: How P&G Transforms Business Through Technology – Procter & Gamble

    Revolutionizing Business: P&G’s Bold Journey into Technological Innovation

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    3 Arts Entertainment Expands Into News With Acquisition of OManagement (Exclusive) – The Hollywood Reporter

    3 Arts Entertainment Expands Into News With Acquisition of OManagement (Exclusive) – The Hollywood Reporter

    Leading Proxy Advisory Firm Glass Lewis Recommends Shareholders Vote “FOR” Both of PENN Entertainment’s Director Nominees on the WHITE Proxy Card – Business Wire

    Glass Lewis Urges Shareholders to Support All PENN Entertainment Director Nominees on the WHITE Proxy Card

    Cisco Partners with Monumental Sports & Entertainment to Power New D.C. Arena – Cisco Newsroom

    Cisco Teams Up with Monumental Sports & Entertainment to Revolutionize the New D.C. Arena Experience

    Middle Eastern Entertainment Headlines at 5:49 a.m. GMT – Yahoo

    Exciting Updates from the Middle Eastern Entertainment Scene!

    Ceramic Dalmatian Entertainment is WLAF’s Business of the Week – WLAF

    Spotlight on Success: Ceramic Dalmatian Entertainment Shines as This Week’s Featured Business!

    Brass Lion Entertainment unveils co-op action RPG Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver – VentureBeat

    Unleash Your Inner Warrior: Discover the Co-Op Action RPG Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Russian Scientists Develop Sub-Ångström Technology for Next-Gen Quantum Processors – The Quantum Insider

    Russian Scientists Pioneer Sub-Ångström Technology to Revolutionize Next-Gen Quantum Processors

    Study uncovers SiPore Technology’s capacity to regulate blood glucose levels – Nutraceutical Business Review

    Study uncovers SiPore Technology’s capacity to regulate blood glucose levels – Nutraceutical Business Review

    SunHydrogen Unveils Large Hydrogen Reactor in Houston – Fuel Cells Works

    SunHydrogen Launches Groundbreaking Large-Scale Hydrogen Reactor in Houston

    Technology, Labor Rights, and Political Power in Kenya and Across Africa – Tech Policy Press

    How Technology is Shaping Labor Rights and Political Power Across Africa

    Reeves to Announce £86 Billion for Science and Technology in Spending Review – Bloomberg

    Reeves Set to Unveil Groundbreaking £86 Billion Investment in Science and Technology!

    Innovation at Scale: How P&G Transforms Business Through Technology – Procter & Gamble

    Revolutionizing Business: P&G’s Bold Journey into Technological Innovation

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Business

SA startup Excel@Uni is solving the problem of alarming student dropout rates

July 21, 2023
in Business
SA startup Excel@Uni is solving the problem of alarming student dropout rates
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Less than half of South African university students complete their degrees, a stark contrast to the 30% rate seen in OECD countries. However, [email protected], a pioneering South African startup, is determined to change this trend. Focused on keeping students on track throughout their academic journey and preparing them for the workplace, the company has recently received recognition from Google as a recipient of the 2023 Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. Co-founder, Lungelo Gumede, told BizNews that [email protected] has achieved remarkable results, boasting an impressive success rate of 90% for their students in a pilot programme, with certain years recording zero drop-outs. Gumede said that black founders often found it difficult to secure investors, but [email protected] adapted their business model and managed to make it more attractive for their preferred investor. – Linda van Tilburg

Listen here

Excerpts from the interview

Having a scholarship does not necessarily mean success at university

The problem we’re trying to solve is essentially founded on an experience that we had as founders while we were at university. I was one of those top students coming into university. The seven As, head prefect all those nice things and actually in my first two years at university, I found that to be extremely easy. However, in my third year, I started to struggle and it was just a multifaceted combination of issues, some personal. But in summary, I’d lost a lot of focus in my third year and I lost my scholarship. I was one of those students who had to find a way to pay for the rest of university. I ran a tuckshop, I used to manufacture hoodies and I ran a private tutoring business as well. So, I eventually was able to pay for my fees and I eventually did graduate. But upon graduation, my co-founder and I sat down and we thought to ourselves, that’s not the ideal experience that a student should have at university, especially one who was a top student coming in. What happened that caused a student to struggle this way? When we reflected on the problem, we realised that perhaps the scholarship that I was on wasn’t as mindful of some of the challenges that were facing. It was forgetting that as much as they were providing funding for me to get through university, that’s only one component.

Read more: Creativity and Depression: An evolving narrative

Providing four pillars of support for students

We sat down and did a bit of research on what was happening internationally around student success, and I discovered that according to most of the empirical evidence, there are essentially four main pillars for students to succeed. These are founded on some of the main frustrations for students at university. One of those things is financial, which is the access issue, insufficient funds to pay for studies. That is important and I think scholarships are doing a good job in South Africa, trying to do that, trying to provide that access. But the other thing, of course, that causes students to drop out is related to struggling academically and not having that additional support to push them through academically. Sometimes as well, it’s just frustrations with the entire administrative system at university and with the scholarships that they receive. It can also be a loss of interest in the programme or an inadequate career readiness aligned with that. So, when you put all these frustrations together, we created a model to support students that is founded on four pillars, which is essentially making sure that you are monitoring and tracking the student’s progress throughout their university degree. I can’t tell you how much money is being put into these scholarships or other funding initiatives for students, but there isn’t good monitoring and tracking of how the students are performing. Once you’ve got that pillar intact, you’re able to then easily detect students who are struggling academically or struggling with personal issues.

Our second pillar is if they are struggling academically, to provide them with additional support academically in the form of private tutoring. But then of course, you might be struggling with personal issues, may be struggling with direction, not too sure what career to follow, etc. That’s where our peer-to-peer mentorship comes in. Then lastly, the final pillar that we do, is provide additional career guidance through our career readiness initiative. If you look at it, it’s quite a simple model and it’s quite intuitive, but at the heart of it, we believe that’s the model that protects streams of students that go to university and other tertiary institutions.

Dropout rates were brought down from 50% to 10% and zero in some years

We took a very patient journey, which is actually very unique for young people, and founders. I studied business science. It’s not like I studied education or anything like that. So, the model that we set up that we created was structured with our very first partnership. We sat down, designed the model and tweaked the model along the way. We said let’s give it a try for three and a half years. We started midyear and the model was so successful that scholarships that originally had a 50% dropout rate, by the end of the three or four-year pilot, success rates were around 90% year-on-year. For a couple of years, our success rate was around 100%. So, we started with that pilot. That was around 2013, 2014. We ran those pilots and were comfortable with the results we got. Then my co-founder and I said, there’s a commercial opportunity and in 2018, we registered the business as a separate entity and started to start looking for other sponsorship clients. Since then, that one client has turned into roughly 22 clients that we’re working together with in partnership to try and solve this problem.

Read more: Cathy Buckle: Dancing, drunkenness, and desperation – The absurdity ahead of Zimbabwe’s national elections

Tweaking the business to find the right investor

Around 2018 started putting together the business plan to pitch to venture capitalists. In 2019, we were hunting for some sort of capital injection. It was extremely difficult. For a lot of reasons that black founders will speak about, which is just that black founders generally struggle to raise capital. I think that it is what it is and it is tough. So, it was difficult but I think our issue was then compounded by the fact that we’re an impact business. So, as much as the commercial gains are important and the impact is also an extremely important element of it. The pure VCs don’t necessarily speak that language. That significantly reduced the sort of pool of funders that we could speak to. So, that was really tough. Our preferred funder, [E Squared Investments] had some requirements that they wanted to see from us, which was tough on us. So we said, that’s too difficult. Like, let’s just go to the pure VCs. At the end of 2019, I said maybe the preferred funder is onto something and maybe we should listen to what they are trying to say to us and we started to put together a plan that would appease their requirements, which I think were very powerful because they set the philosophy with how we run our business.

Read also:

Breadline Africa to tackle South Africa’s pit latrine crisis, help 120,000 children – Johan Nel
South African startup Omnisient: Using AI and alternative data to help millions access credit
Mzansi Youth Choir strikes a harmonious chord in American hearts, tuning to strike victory

(Visited 56 times, 56 visits today)

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : BizNews – https://www.biznews.com/good-hope-project/2023/07/21/exceluni-solving-dropout-rate

Tags: businessExcelStartup
Previous Post

IndyCar Iowa: Oval ace Newgarden fastest in first practice

Next Post

Premium – RW Johnson: Sans gold, Joburg a world-class city NOT, facing inevitable decline

Russian Scientists Develop Sub-Ångström Technology for Next-Gen Quantum Processors – The Quantum Insider

Russian Scientists Pioneer Sub-Ångström Technology to Revolutionize Next-Gen Quantum Processors

June 11, 2025
How the Shallowing of the Caspian Sea Will Affect Kazakhstan’s Ecology and Economy – The Times Of Central Asia

The Disappearing Caspian Sea: Exploring Its Dramatic Effects on Kazakhstan’s Environment and Economy

June 10, 2025
NIH scientists call on director to protect biomedical research – NPR

NIH Scientists Call for Bold Action to Protect the Future of Biomedical Research

June 10, 2025
Commentary: Trump’s NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future – Los Angeles Times

How Trump’s NASA Cuts Could Derail Decades of Scientific Breakthroughs and Jeopardize Our Future

June 10, 2025

Costco Shoppers Are Loving the ‘Refreshing’ New Frozen Summer Treat That Was Just Added to the Food Court Menu – Yahoo

June 10, 2025
How a forgotten tape recorder led to Tunde Adebimpe’s debut album : World Cafe – NPR

How a forgotten tape recorder led to Tunde Adebimpe’s debut album : World Cafe – NPR

June 10, 2025
Spain’s economy to grow at steady rate, central bank predicts – Investing.com

Spain’s Economy Set for Steady Growth, Central Bank Forecasts

June 10, 2025
3 Arts Entertainment Expands Into News With Acquisition of OManagement (Exclusive) – The Hollywood Reporter

3 Arts Entertainment Expands Into News With Acquisition of OManagement (Exclusive) – The Hollywood Reporter

June 10, 2025

Inside US Health Secretary Kennedy’s Bold Vaccine Strategies and Game-Changing Policy Moves

June 10, 2025
A Professor Was Fired for Her Politics. Is That the Future of Academia? – The New York Times

A Professor Was Fired for Her Politics. Is That the Future of Academia? – The New York Times

June 10, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (680)
  • Economy (694)
  • Entertainment (21,599)
  • General (15,314)
  • Health (9,736)
  • Lifestyle (698)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (695)
  • Politics (701)
  • Science (15,912)
  • Sports (21,196)
  • Technology (15,681)
  • World (679)

Recent News

Russian Scientists Develop Sub-Ångström Technology for Next-Gen Quantum Processors – The Quantum Insider

Russian Scientists Pioneer Sub-Ångström Technology to Revolutionize Next-Gen Quantum Processors

June 11, 2025
How the Shallowing of the Caspian Sea Will Affect Kazakhstan’s Ecology and Economy – The Times Of Central Asia

The Disappearing Caspian Sea: Exploring Its Dramatic Effects on Kazakhstan’s Environment and Economy

June 10, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version