Durban - While other pupils waited for schools to reopen for the second term after the national lockdown last year, a group of pupils from an Nkandla high school forged ahead with the syllabus on their own.
The hard work paid off for one of these pupils, in particular, from Ngona Secondary, who was recognised for excelling against adversities in both maths and physical science at the Department of Education's award ceremony for top achievers who sat for the 2020 National Senior Certificate matric exams.
Awanda Dladla,18, said when they learnt that schools were going to be closed due to Covid-19, they formed a group and continued going to school and teaching themselves.
He said when schools reopened for the second term, they had already covered and completed the syllabus for that term.
"We decided to forge ahead on our own. We sat and talked among ourselves, looking at which pupils were good in each of the subjects, and began going to school. We also approached some teachers who also helped us during this time,“ Awanda said.
Zakhona Mposula, 17, from Phendukani High School in Newcastle came out top in the same category against adversities as Dladla, and also took the prize for the physical science category.
She was also the number one pupil overall in the Amajuba district. The district was placed fourth in the top five districts.
Zakhona, who obtained 8 distinctions, said she felt proud that all her hard work had paid off and was looking forward to her future endeavours.
"I have provisional acceptances for actuarial science, accounting science and mechanical engineering at the University of Witwatersrand. I'm leaning towards studying actuarial science since I am good in maths, I know that it’s a very challenging field to go into and I’m ready to accept this challenge," she said.
The school's principal, Bheki Kubheka, said he was excited and proud of the hard work by pupils at the school overall.
“The teachers put in a lot of hard work too, especially in a time that we were faced with Covid-19. The support from parents also helped. I am over the moon,” he said.
The school has been a full service school since 2012, enrolling able-bodied and disabled pupils as well as those with learning disabilities.
Kubheka said for 2020, the school achieved a 94% pass rate, an improvement from the previous year's pass rate of 87%. The school had 265 pupils sit for the final Grade 12 exams.
"It's a huge improvement. I know the teachers back home are also very excited and out of the 265 pupils, 249 passed and 150 of these received Bachelor passes and three received 7 distinctions. Mposula was the number one candidate in the district and another pupil also took fifth place in the district," said Kubheka.
He said the school would maintain and sustain its superior performance as it had every year.
The Daily News