Everybody's heard about dial-a-pizza and dial-a-video, but how about calling up a teacher to help you with a pesky maths problem or chemistry equation?
Dial-a-Teacher was launched yesterday by Education Minister Kader Asmal as the first telephone tutoring service for South African pupils. The project is sponsored by Vodacom to the tune of about R4 million.
Pupils can now call the help-line on "082-2411". It is staffed after hours by experienced teachers who can help pupils with their homework queries or projects.
Asmal said the ground-breaking initiative would have a significant impact on the drive to improve academic results in South Africa.
The service is for all pupils up to matric and will initially be provided in English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa. Other official languages will be added as demand increases.
"The Dial-a-Teacher service will assist all learners throughout the country. A similar service has worked well in other countries such as Malaysia.
"We have just experienced last year's low matriculation pass rate of 48,9%. The Dial-a Teacher service should go a long way towards supplementing other initiatives aimed at improving South Africa's education system," he said.
Andrew Mthembu, managing director of Vodacom, said that Dial-a-Teacher was the brainchild of former Miss South Africa Amy Kleynhans, who is a qualified teacher.
"Poor education is associated with bad or no facilities and the absence of a culture of learning. Dial-a-Teacher will be useful as a learning resource, especially for disadvantaged communities where access to libraries and first-class teaching are likely to be limited."
The Dial-a-Teacher call centre in Cape Town is staffed by up to 200 teachers and will take calls from 6.30pm to 9pm, Sundays to Thursdays.
Vodacom's sponsorship will enable pupils seeking help to make calls at a subsidised rate of 30c a minute from the Vodacom and Telkom networks. Calls on any other network or the pre-paid service will be charged at the full rate.