By Lebone Rodah Mosima
Nearly 36 000 Grade 12 learners in the North West are receiving additional tuition and examination preparation through the provincial education department’s winter camp programme ahead of the 2026 National Senior Certificate examinations.
The North West Department of Education said on Saturday that approximately 35 943 learners were expected to benefit from 131 camps being held across the province during the winter school holidays.
The programme, which began on 26 June and is scheduled to end on 19 July, comprises 117 residential camps and 14 walk-in camps.
“In 117 Residential Camps, candidates reside full-time at the camp to guarantee high discipline, complete focus, and continuous tutoring access,” the department said.
“Learners have been given rules of the camp that they should obey and parents have also signed the commitment thereof.”
The department said it had also established structured daytime intervention points in areas where non-residential access was more practical or preferred.
It said the programme was intended to help struggling learners overcome academic difficulties and improve their prospects of obtaining passing marks in the final examinations.
The camps focus on intensive revision of difficult and high-weighted topics in gateway subjects, including Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Accounting.
North West Education MEC Viola Motsumi said the camps formed part of the department’s strategy to provide learners with additional academic support and revision.
“The Winter Camps provide learners with intensive academic support, revision sessions, and examination preparation in key subjects to strengthen their readiness for the final matric examinations,” Motsumi said.
“They provide a general revision, and these interventions operate as highly coordinated, syllabus-focused, and targeted academic exercises designed to lift our provincial matric results to greater heights.”
Motsumi said safety had been prioritised at the camps and that a provincial rapid-response team comprising officials from different departmental units had been established to monitor safety concerns.
Security personnel had also been appointed at the camps, according to the department.
“We are pleading with the general community to support learners who are in the camps by giving them a peaceful moment”, Motsumi said.
INSIDE EDUCATION
