Top Achievers

• Published date: 15 March 2021
• Publication title: Mail & Guardian: Web Edition Articles (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Learners were wrapping up the first term of the 2020 academic year when Covid-19 started sweeping the country and lockdown was introduced. What was normally a 10-day school holiday quickly became a three-week holiday filled with uncertainty.

A quick look at the 2017, 2018 and 2019 school calendars shows that on average, an academic year has around 200 school days in it. But 2020, with all the lockdown regulations and amendments to the calendar, had just 156 school days, resulting in schools losing about two months of school days. For learners in matric, this was extra challenging, due to the fact a typical year in matric has three exam periods that run for 60 days on average. So a 200-day academic year is typically a 160-day academic year if you are a matric learner.

In addition to all of this, the global pandemic caused a lot of uncertainty, with many people doubting that the 2020 academic year would get completed at all. "I was not sure if we were going to finish the year and matriculate or if we were going to be told to come back for one more year of high school. At some point, I was panicking because I had waited so long for this moment and it felt like it was going to be delayed," says Lerato Mogorosi, a class of 2020 matriculant. Another Grade 12 learner, Zamani Mvuleka, says he's happy that he managed to complete the academic year despite all the challenges the year came with. Both learners are looking forward to pursuing their tertiary qualifications after performing well in their matric.

So many things changed, and these had an impact on the overall learning experience of almost all learners. Lerato says that she already knew that it was going to be a challenging year. "I had been warned before about how overwhelming matric can be, but lockdown took it to another level. Everything changed, and it all happened quickly. We had to adapt to new ways of learning and most teachers weren't familiar with the new platforms. It was just frustrating," she adds.

According to Mvuleka, his biggest challenge in the beginning was adapting. "I am a person who generally struggles to adapt, so being used to contact learning, I really struggled to adapt to online learning."

Mvuleka's experience was not unique. Many learners, students as well as teachers and lecturers struggled to transition from the in-person learning environment to virtual — even in cases where access to the internet and a laptop or computer, computer literacy and a conducive home environment were not factors.

In addition to having to adapt to new learning methods and new teaching platforms, many learners found themselves struggling with additional factors such as having to work from home and dealing with poor connectivity. In March, South Africans were experiencing slow internet connections when both the West African Cable System (Wacs) and the South Atlantic Telecommunication (SAT-3) undersea cables broke. Mogorosi says during that time, she missed a few classes because she was struggling to connect to her virtual classes. "After a while, more work started becoming available via Google Classroom and being shared through WhatsApp, so the situation got better," she explains.

Mvuleka could still attend online classes. "But with no one there to really hold me accountable, I started slacking. Everyone at home was busy, so it was easy for me to just miss classes."

Both learners credit a large portion of their good academic performance to the support they received during the year. Mogorosi had a life coach who did a lot of work to prepare her for the pressure that was inevitably going to come as the situation kept evolving and expectations kept rising. She also joined an online academic support group started by one of her former teachers. "I was so relieved to realise that I'm not the only one struggling with the challenges of lockdown and trying to learn during a global pandemic. The group really helped because we spent a lot of time just having conversations with each other, finding out how everyone is doing and suggesting ways in which we could all cope with what was happening. In addition to that, we received help with some of the school work we were struggling with," she adds. Her parents also got her a private tutor for maths and science, which helped her a lot with her exam preparations.

But this extra support is something most learners across South Africa simply could not afford.

"I didn't have a life coach, but I reached out to a private tutor who also helped me with maths and science and went out of his way to check on the progress I was making with other subjects. He also helped me prepare for all of my exams," says Mvuleka. Both learners agree that they had to reach out for help because "it felt like everyone was busy trying to survive the Covid-19 pandemic".

One of the challenges that come with being around people who are all busy, Mvuleka explains, is that it becomes increasingly difficult to find motivation. The people who used to motivate him were in need of motivation themselves; the places he used to go to for inspiration were not accessible anymore.

Don't neglect your hobbies

"One of the things my tutor told me to do was to spend time doing the things I liked, to not neglect my hobbies because I'm busy. I enjoy playing soccer, but I had convinced myself that I did not have enough time to play, and besides the fact that we were in lockdown, I had to do my school work. I told myself it's a reward for all the work I did that day, and that really helped me." Zamani played soccer alone in the backyard most of the time, but spending time practising his soccer skills cheered him up and allowed him to focus on school work.

Lerato Mogorosi also made time in her daily schedule to go on walks, take pictures and play a bit of backyard hockey. "Spending time doing the things I enjoyed really kept me sane when the frustrations started piling up. It was an outlet I used to release my frustrations."

Zamani Mvuleka's advice to the class of 2021 is simple: "Do not fall into the trap of complacency. Set up a schedule for all your work and stick to it. If you have to tell your parents to force you to do your homework, tell them. Take all your assignments seriously because even though your school-based assessments or year mark only contributes 25% of your final mark, you don't want to look at your results at the end of the year and know that the 1% or 2% that you're short of was probably lost when you took your assignments for granted."

Mogorosi says: "Set your goals, say your prayers, and do what you have to do to achieve them. We came out alright in the end, happy with our performance, but 2020 was definitely a scary rollercoaster." — Thabo Makgato

Mining engineer Leslie Moloto

'Education found me; I didn't look for it'

When Leslie Moloto decided that his prospects as a mining engineer were not aligned with his dreams and passion, he took a leap of faith. At the time, many thought he was making the worst decision of his life and career, but years later, he says it has been worth it and given the chance he would do it all over again. His journey is one of tenacity, faith and passion. Moloto sat down to tell the Mail & Guardian about quitting his job as a mining engineer to become a teacher and realise his hopes and dreams — including finding creative ways to pay for his master's degree at an international university, while giving back to learners who remind him of his own story.

What made you leave mining engineering to pursue education?

I was getting more and more passionate about education, and at the same time, the working environment in the mines at the time was really frustrating and draining me. I was working 14- to 15-hour shifts and not feeling fulfilled, and I would facilitate a four-hour maths workshop for high school learners and get so much more fulfillment.

One day, I decided to resign from the mines because I really did not like the place where I was working and didn't find value in the work I was doing. A few months later, I decided to pursue a career in education because it hit me that that's the area where I believed I could add the most value. I left one for its own reasons, and walked into the other, also for its own reason. It wasn't simply trading teaching for the mining engineering situation.

Why did you even study mining engineering to begin with?

I actually wanted to study medicine. From as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor, because that's what the smart kids do where I'm from. When I completed matric, I was accepted to study medicine, and had been awarded a bursary, but my family didn't have the money required for registration. The bursary was awarded but was only going to make payments from April. I was feeling hurt and unmotivated, so I decided I'm going to stay at home and do nothing.Then one of my teachers showed me an advert for engineering bursaries; I read up a bit on the discipline and picked mining engineering. And that's how I ended up studying mining engineering.

When was the moment you realised that teaching was your passion? And how did you make the decision to leave a financially lucrative career to pursue one with less financial rewards and more work?

I'd like to think that I didn't choose teaching, but teaching chose me. I can't exactly remember a moment where I thought to myself: "This is it." During the middle of my final year in university, I stumbled across a TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson in which he was talking about education and creativity, and it sparked my interest in education. It felt like someone had just described exactly what I'd been feeling. But I was still pursuing a career in mining, plotting developmental paths and all of that stuff. As the year progressed, I started tutoring high school learners; up to that point I had done a lot of tutoring in university.

It was through the many hours of tutoring and interacting with a lot of different people that I got really passionate about...