How Gradesmatch Is Helping Matriculants Make Informed Career Choices. Choosing what to do after high school can be such an overwhelming task because most matriculants aren’t educated enough about the different career fields that are available and more importantly the career that matches their academic performance or abilities. Choosing a wrong career can lead to a learner failing in tertiary institutions or lead to unhappiness and depression in the work place. Learners lead sufficient information about tertiary institutions and what kind of courses they offer as well as the minimum academic requirements in order for them to make well informed career choices.
Gradesmatch is a South African mobile application that allows pupils to enter their marks and then matches them with suitable tertiary institutions. It was co-founded in 2013 by Lebogang Diale and Unathi September who wanted to provide a solution to matric pupils from schools in previously disadvantaged communities.
Gradesmatch is a comprehensive career guidance technology that assists learners in Africa with career planning to unlock their true potential. Its technology is designed to map career data to learners, teachers and mentors, assisting in making well informed good career decisions that will improve long term education and career outcomes.
The company aims to provide good quality career guidance to every learner in Africa as this will enable them to easily navigate through the complexity of understanding different career pathways from education to employment. “All we cared about was just the learners getting information, but when that became unsustainable, we had to find a way to scale it up and technology was a natural thing for us because that what we studied.” said September in an interview with UCT School Of IT.
To use the app, learners must register their details and answer questions regarding their personality traits and career goals. This information is then carefully analysed to give options of different career choices, qualification programs and a list of universities that offer them.
The start up has won numerous awards such as Google Impact Challenge 2018, Ventureburn Start-Up Winner and SOMAFCO LIM Start-Up Winner. The app now has over 84 000 users across South Africa and Namibia.
