A free online education portal encompassing the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, or CAPS, curriculum from Grade R to Grade 12, in almost all of the country’s official languages, is now available.

Online educational producer DigiCampus offers a comprehensive online learning platform in multiple languages. The lessons take place in the setting of a virtual classroom and include videos of teachers presenting lessons, switching from whiteboards, notes or diagrams, to on-screen slides used to conduct individual lessons. Technical support is also offered to all registered users.

DigiCampus states that in 2017 it identified the need to digitally transform education, in an effort to ensure equitable and wider-reaching education and thus created a comprehensive online learning platform. The company aims to provide unlimited access to video lessons in all languages and in every subject.

Learner content and lectures for the initial two quarters of the academic year are currently available on the platform and plans are underway to add the remainder of the curriculum by mid-2020.

The company explains that as soon as the national lockdown was announced, it transformed its 23 on-site studios across the country into 160 virtual studios based in educators’ homes. The necessary equipment was moved to individual premises just before the national lockdown commenced to ensure that current and future recordings were not disrupted and to allow learners continuous access to online education, it adds.

The combination of prepared lessons in various languages for all subjects across multiple grades makes DigiCampus the most comprehensive basic education online learning platform in South Africa. The company emphasises its goal to remain an all-inclusive platform that allows free access to every learner from anywhere, all the time. The online learning platform further aims to enable students to learn at their own pace and in their mother tongue.

The free online platform is available at https://www.digicampus.co.za/