When the rein of Apartheid ended South Africa became a
country of hope, but recently it has become one of hopelessness. This is due to
poverty, crime, unemployment, inequalities; disastrous state of education,
corruption, greed the list is endless. Those who suffer the brunt of this sordid
boon of the past regime are those paralysed by the lack of means of ever
escaping such an unpromising place. There are miracle stories of those who do flee
such a place and become man amongst men, but we misconstrue this as a possibility
for everyone to walk the same road. I call these miracle stories that rebel
odds-exception to the rule that can never be true for everyone. We often
believe our destiny is not defied by where we come from; our illusion sneaks in
when we assume this wilful assertion dismisses the limitation of one’s background
on one’s destiny.
I am defined as a class that has much growth promise and
hope, but which is in-between the meagre and affluent state of our lives. I
have experienced poverty and deprivation, but at list my background offered me
hope to break away from the surge of breadline. This came by through education
in previously disadvantage schools of Indians, Coloureds and church owned Black
schools. Some of my peers who were not offered such an opportunity fully
display the gaps that are sometimes blurry to me. The point of no return where
one sees the importance of quality is during matriculation. This is the year
where students and or schools compete for life elevation. It is quite ironic how
we get surprised by the gap in achievements amongst students and schools, but
all this time earlier standards reflected the future of one’s results.
The most difficult year in my formal education was
grade 11; grade 12 was easy. What made grade 11 tricky was that it was the
foundation on which to continue from in grade 12. What grade 12 had was too
much work to cover, social activities of all kind, pressure of making it to the
best university and choosing a viable career all of this was fitted in limited
time. The stress of success, being better than ones parents and achieving as
highly as possible haunted all those who received quality education. The question
of failing never dawned in me it was a matter of how high my marks will be affording
me a place in one of the influential universities. Success was inevitable,
being better was predestined especially for us who were to be the first to go institutes
of higher education, the teacher stuff and support made achieving highly foreseeable.
If one felt so positive how could one fail? How did those who had no such
resources feel? Did they give up? Did they feel inferior to other students? Did
they put their dreams into hold to escape the mockery of realist? My fear of
hypocrisy averts me from answering these painful questions.
What I battled with was choosing the right career and
university, fortunately we had Vocational Guidance every Wednesday which afforded
us the chance to do job shadowing, get presentations of different careers and most importantly what
subject choices met those careers. This occurred as early as grade 11, when I
knew people who wanted careers which they could not do due to misguided subject
choice. Universities around the Western Cape were also organised to come and
tell us all about their institutions, there were career days where we went to
them snooped around, looked at their brochures, asked questions and received the
right answers. This happened in a country where I know people who have no
access to such universities. These institutions went as far as selling their
institution to us, claiming to be the best at what they do. It was a matter of
choosing the institution that best suited you. How could one study towards his
chosen career when his or her subject choice was wrong? How could one choose
the right and best university when one has not heard of such institutions? It was
in this class that I first discovered Rhodes University even though I am from
the Eastern Cape. There was a folded form with no brochure lying around one of
my classmate picked it up and asked, “What is this? Where is it from?” The
teacher bestowed her wisdom sarcastically, “It’s written there on the form, and
it’s a university from the Eastern Cape”. He threw it to me while uttering the
not so startling words, “Eastern Cape (that’s what they called me), take this
and apply”. I took it home to other forms from the University of Stellenbosch,
University of the Western Cape, Cape Peninsula University of Technology,
University of Cape Town, Witwatersrand University, and University of
KwaZulu-Natal. I applied to all the only difference with this form to others was
that these came with an envelope and a brochure; I applied with no presented guidance,
and care from my side.
The environment was ideal for success, my father’s
exceptional support granted nothing but success, the teachers’ magnificent skill
advocated knowledge beyond measure and most importantly their shared wisdom of
what to expect in University although it sometimes brought fear and
unworthiness made entering higher education seamless. Although university is a
place where one discovers himself my form of personal expression and knowledge loving
was discovered in my latter years of my schooling. This occurred when I met women
who loved power of knowing and wanting to know. Mrs Forgarty showed me the
value of curiosity being on the quest of fighting not knowing and her teachings
of the most important gear of higher education being research, discussion-essay
construction, and referencing; Mrs
Du Plooy’s intrigued love of efficiency and principled acquiring of knowledge
with no favours and total inclusion; and Mrs Kay’s love and respect for her
student beyond measure, knowing when to laugh and to be serious and knowing
every students’ potential and warmly unleashing it.
I got all of this, but I received it with so much guilt
as I could not walk sightless to escape witnessing the state of some in my
families’, homeboys’ and home-girls’, countrymen’s education.
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