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The Answer Series offers teachers free access to study guide E-books

MyPR: The Answer Series offers teachers free access to study guide E-books:

Cape Town, January 2020: As the country currently celebrates a 25-year high in the matric pass rate with an impressive 81.3% of learners achieving success, South Africa’s leading study guide publisher, The Answer Series, will make digital versions of its study guides available to all teachers across the country at no cost. The easy-to-use guides have been a trusted resource for learners since 1975, and many teachers refer to the guides during class to assist learners in grasping the subject matter in a manner that is easier to process.

George Eadie, CEO of The Answer Series, says “Teachers are unsung heroes in our country. They battle packed curriculums, large classes and many work in devastating conditions with little or no support. By offering free access to our guides, we hope to make their lives easier as the guides are a resource for teachers as much as learners.”

The Answer Series can amplify the learning experience and results of teaching. “We use a comprehensive, basics-to-excellence approach to guide you easily through your challenging course material. The Sustainable Development Goal for Education states the following: ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. This has been the spirit of The Answer Series for decades, technology is now making it possible at scale.”

Partnering with Snapplify, a fast-growing edtech marketplace, and the largest e-Book aggregator in Africa, The Answer Series is available at no cost to teachers with a free-to-register Snapplify account. Teachers simply log into the e-learning platform, Engage, to download the guides of which there are almost 57 different guides available in English, and 35 in Afrikaans on the platform.

Recently, Snapplify has been supporting the Western Cape Department of Education with reading initiatives in school. Since 2016 in Gauteng, they have been working alongside the Gauteng Department of Education on a project that is set to bring technology and e-learning to all public schools in the province. This is the largest national-level intervention in digital education in South Africa currently.

Eadie continues, “We have a trusted partnership with Snapplify that we hope to see grow and we applaud their commitment to learners at all levels as this resonates with us as a business too. We have a shared mandate to assist learners. By making the guides available to teachers, we hope to see Matric pass rates continue to increase year on year from this year’s 81.3% – and learners excelling across grades 8 through to 12 in all subject matter.”

The Answer Series opted to launch a digital copy of its books due to practical reasons as this allows for in-class projection – something, when speaking to teachers, they found to be valuable. The guides have been available in print format for over 40 years, and now digital offers a powerful complement to the learning process. “We are currently seeking methods to promote access at the learner level too in a format that is best suited to their study requirements.”

Mark Seabrook, Snapplify’s Operations Director, says the company has a long history of working to support educators and learners with digital tools and resources. “Snapplify’s partnership with The Answer Series marks the launch of Teacher Benefits in Engage, with additional free teacher-focused content to come in the very near future. When educators have the tools and resources they need, they can focus on what they do best: teach.”

There are 57 English and 35 Afrikaans guides available in print format through The Answer Series website, their Head Office in Claremont, and via over 600 bookstores across South Africa.

For more information on The Answer Series, please visit its website, Follow them on Facebook or call (021)671-0837 or email info@theanswerseries.co.za.

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Have you tried: Whale and Dolphin Watching in Algoa Bay?

Did you know this about Johannesburg? The Rissik Street Post Office was built in 1897, having been designed by the architect Sytze Wierda. The Post Office was at one time the tallest building in Johannesburg. The Post Office became a national monument in 1978, and it remained in operation until 1996 when the South African Post Office vacated the building. The monument was gutted by a fire in 2009. The old City Hall is opposite the Post Office in Rissik Street.

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The World’s Largest Man-Made Urban Forest

One of the most surprising facts about Johannesburg is its status as a “green” city. When the first settlers arrived, the Highveld was a barren, treeless grassland (savannah). To support the mining industry, millions of trees were imported and planted to provide timber for mine underground supports. Fast forward to the present day, and Johannesburg is widely considered the largest man-made urban forest in the world.

There are an estimated 10 million trees within the city limits. This includes 1.2 million trees on sidewalks and in parks, and over 4.8 million in private gardens. This forest is so dense that satellite images of the northern suburbs often resemble a tropical rainforest. The most iconic of these trees is the Jacaranda, which was imported from South America in the early 20th century. Every October and November, the city turns a vibrant shade of purple as thousands of Jacarandas bloom simultaneously. However, this “forest” also highlights the city’s historical inequality; during the Apartheid era, trees were predominantly planted in wealthy white suburbs, leaving townships like Soweto as dusty plains. In the last two decades, “Greening Soweto” initiatives have seen hundreds of thousands of trees planted to bridge this “green divide,” emphasizing the role of urban forestry in social justice and climate cooling.