Justice through education: 2014

This year, with the help of Rotary's Ethekwini's Educational Trust, we have been able to send a new little member of our Micah6 clan to a great primary school in Durban. She was previously in a very disadvantaged school in the Mayville area with over 50-60 students in a class that provides sub-standard tuition for its students. It was quite evident that this sparkly little life was being stifled by an environment that fails to provide even the most basic education needs to its learners.

Months of intensive efforts by Caroline Goodier went into preparing little Sphe for her new school to fill in learning gaps before starting grade 5 in her new school. For over a year Caroline has been coaching her on reading and comprehension, taking her to and from extra mathematics tuition weekly and exposing her to a world of general knowledge. The hard work has paid off.

Little Sphe is top of her class in mathematics and has developed an amazing way with words, English words! Below is a little poem she wrote recently which amazes us all.

Leaves

The leaves sang

through the wind and danced

through the wind and whistled

through the wind and when they were tired

they stood up quietly.

They slept

and when they woke

they started again making a loud noise

and even woke up

two pretty birds.

They have pretty dresses

in all seasons and they continue singing

with their beautiful voices

from the trees.

Thank you to Caroline who continues to play a mothering and teaching role in Sphe's life, fetching her daily from school and overseeing her homework daily. You have gone beyond the call and redeemed the potential of yet another life.

It has been almost 18 months since I last posted a blog on Micah6. The main reason for this is that last year was just truly difficult in terms engaging in efforts to support Sparks Estate Secondary, the school to which most of our learners belong. Our principal was suspended from the school for the majority of the year and then we faced untold challenges as a result. This is a story for another blog post. It is easier to write the story now as it has been resolved finally. Instead I would like to focus on the good news: We have reached the end of the first leg of the Micah6 journey with success.

All Micah6 girls who wrote the NSC matric exams passed in some form or another!

Hlengiwe and Avela both obtained a bachelors pass (and has been accepted into a degree course at university).Nonkululeko, Nokwanda and Nosihle obtained a Diploma pass and

Nomfundo obtained a pass for higher certificate.

If one considers that we lost only two girls along the way then we have had a 75% success rate on the original group who started at Sparks in 2009. I am very proud that Hlengiwe has started Psychology at UKZN as of last week. Just to put this achievement in context, four of these girls have been double orphans from early childhood and all live in abject poverty in the informal settlement of Cato Manor. Their circumstance alone creates major challenges for them which are difficult for anyone to overcome. Studying for exams is about candlelight, finding time in the midst of violence and daily chores such as collecting water. Studying for exams is about overcoming textbook shortage challenges and trying to understand the material given often substandard teaching, striking teachers or just no teacher at all.

Many people however often scoff and reflect that the matric exam has no meaning or real value. Especially in recent months critics have lambasted the current matric pass mark requirement and often erroneously say that it is only 30% and that the matric pass mark was much higher in the past. Both of these statements are in fact not true. As Stephen Taylor (advisor at the DoE, good economist and friend) responds when debunking these two myths in a recent article for the Mail and Guardian:

"Myth 1: "The pass requirements were higher in the past." This is simply not true: the pass mark for a subject was never 50%. Not during apartheid. Not in recent years. Never.

Myth 2: "The pass mark is 30%." In fact, the NSC requires six subjects to be passed, three with at least 40% and the remaining three with at least 30%.

People are asking for the pass mark to be raised to 50%. Well what would the implications of this be? He estimates that about 120 000 pupils would have passed matric in 2013, compared with the 440 000 who did in fact pass. This means that less than 20% of all South African youths would successfully complete matric.

He then goes on to reflect on the negative consequences this would have for our nation. The article is worth a read (http://mg.co.za/article/2014-02-14-matric-critics-must-face-reality#comment_thread).

His findings also helps to protect the value of our girls' achievement. Well done girls and well done to those who have supported them along the way. We have also overcome countless challenges. In particular I want to recognise the selfless, weekly efforts of Coral Wills and Caroline Goodier who committed themselves to seeing these girls succeed.

Justice through education

Our Youngest Beneficiary Doing us Proud

All Micah6 girls who wrote the NSC matric exams passed

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