Three CambriLearn students participated in South Africa's largest school science competition in August. All three returned with medals awarded by independent judges who had no affiliation with the school.
Mapula spent a year developing a below-knee prosthesis. This prosthesis is modular and adjustable, made from locally available materials, and is affordable enough for a family without medical assistance to purchase. She presented her invention at the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists, where she received a gold medal at the regional level in August. Subsequently, she moved on to developing a knee joint for above-knee amputees, which presents a significantly more complex engineering challenge.
Two other CambriLearn students also participated in the same competition. Joni developed biodegradable sanitary pads after learning about chemical substances in some commercial pads linked to health issues. She plans to create a charity organization to distribute her developments in rural areas. Ruth compared PFAS-based foaming agents with fluorine-free alternatives, assessing them in terms of safety and performance. After visiting a fire station, she learned that chemicals in foam and firefighters' protective gear are linked to long-term illnesses. Joni also won gold, and Ruth won silver.
Receiving three medals from three projects usually draws criticism toward the school. However, in this case, CambriLearn was not involved in the evaluation of the work.
Why Independent Evaluation Matters More Than Internal School Metrics
Every school publishes its own statistics, and CambriLearn provides many such reports. The school reports a 98% university acceptance rate among applicants, students receiving over $25 million in scholarships, and a 4.8-star rating based on over 330 reviews. All this information is provided by the school itself, as is the case in all educational institutions.
The figures from the Eskom Expo are different because they are not the school's own data. It is the country's largest school science competition, and its scale is significant: 18,481 students participated this year, presenting 13,882 projects across 287 district exhibitions, of which about 6,300 qualified for 38 regional fairs. Judging is distributed across 13 scientific categories, and panels consist of engineers, clinicians, researchers, and academics appointed by the Competition itself. None of CambriLearn staff members had a vote in Mapula's work assessment.
This distinction is important in any discussion about online schools and may give parents more information than most data presented at recent open houses. It is worth asking about the competitions students participate in, who appoints the judges, and what the results of their presentations are. These answers are publicly available. This year, CambriLearn projects covered prosthetics, materials science, and fire safety chemistry.
How Three Home-Based Students Conducted Real Research
After discussing costs and communication, parents often worry that a child studying at home will do everything alone. CambriLearn operates differently, and the details of its functioning deserve attention. Lessons are conducted in real-time and on a schedule by subject matter expert teachers, providing the student with a fixed weekly structure for integrating a long-term project, instead of facing an unlimited mass of content to study. Anyone conducting independent research at CambriLearn is assigned a mentor in addition to a subject teacher; for example, Mapula was mentored from the very first sketch. All three projects were implemented over several months of the regular academic year, alongside a full course load.
CambriLearn has spent two decades building this system. It teaches students aged 4 to 19 in over 100 countries, has educated more than 80,000 of them, and covers five curricula across six streams: International British Curriculum, Pearson Edexcel, CAPS and its Afrikaans equivalent KABV, IEB, and the American K-12 program. CambriLearn is accredited by Cognia and Pearson Edexcel, registered with SACAI and IEB, approved by NCAA, and every staff teacher holds a degree.
Enrollment for the 2027 academic year is open. Mapula, Joni, and Ruth will find out this month whether their projects will qualify for the International Eskom Expo Science Fair, which will take place at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park.