TOP STUDY SKILLS MENTOR DRILLS BARCLAYS SPONSORED STUDENTS AT UDSM

A total of 18 Barclays Bank Tanzania sponsorship awardees at the University of Dar es Salaam have benefitted from mentorship training aimed at fine-tuning their skills ahead of examinations and the demands of the job market ahead, delivered by Elevate, the top study skills provider in the world.

This is the second edition of the programme at the university involving top performing students sponsored by Barclays, who are selected through a three-tier process featuring an online audit of students, use of independent learning skills, and student engagements.

“We try to bridge the gap between the top performing students and the average students,” said Yolisa Motha, Head Presenter of Elevate Education, saying a notable 80 percent of success in examinations comes from preparations with the remaining from examination room endeavours.

She explained that the training is broad based and focus on using inherent but often ignored soft skills to enable students to gradually build capacity that enable them to perform better at examinations, while at the same time being able to cope with real-time job market situation.

“What we teach is not rocket science but common sense, things that students are supposed to use but don’t do so,” she said, “We give them what they can take and run with.” The trainer said the training is made user-friendly by deploying young presenters and using interactive approach.

She said the training aims at among others blasting the misconception that examination is a memory test, terming the notion among the leading causes of failures among students. “An examination is about the application of what you understand from learning,” noted Ms Motha.

Elevate is an award-winning international education company which has been mentoring students for the last 16 years, working with more than 2,500 schools and 500,000 students each year.

Speaking at the training, Barclays Bank Tanzania Citizenship Manager, Hellen Siria said the training creates efficiency in the studying process by minimizing incidences of failures, the redressing of which consumes valuable time the student could have used for scaling the success ladder.

“Students should understand that extracurricular skills they get here determines their fate both in college later in job- hunting and impacts on their lives,” she said. “They should not take consolation in the mistaken notion that even if they fail, they still have ample time to recoup what is lost.”