Passing the grade

Did you know that in South Africa, a passing grade is a 40%? I was shocked to hear this. According to the people I've spoken to, the government has lowered the school standards in order to have more students graduating from high school. Even with these standards, there are still schools that have a 0% pass rate in the province of Limpopo. As in many things, the education system in South Africa seems to suffer from huge disparities. Some schools, especially in the highly populated areas of Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban have the best education you could ask for. Others, specifically the public schools in rural areas, have 80 students to a classroom and very poor education.

At Pfunanane Academy, we often get children from these rural schools. We have children entering grade 5 or 6, unable to read or count. The majority of these students are very eager to learn, but have not had the instruction needed to grow. At Pfunanane, we try to keep the teacher/student ratio under 25 students to a teacher. Many classes are much less than that. This helps us to really work with our kids, especially those who transferred in and are struggling to keep up. We've raised our expectations and our students have showed us that they can not just pass school, but excel in it.

My grade 6 students are eager to learn and really fun to have in class. They never want to miss school and even come when they're sick. One day this term, I was sick and stayed home. I sent down homework for them to do, but even so my entire class came up to visit me at break time. They asked me to please come down and teach them. Precious!

This term we've focused on gaining more of a passion for learning and striving for excellence. This class studied so hard, with the brightest students tutoring the slower learners. They set a goal of a 70% class average, and in many subjects, they did better than that. This term coming up, they've set goals to tutor younger grades and to raise the class average. I'm so proud of their accomplishments!