{"id":248399,"date":"2023-01-27T04:02:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T02:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/studying-before-dawn-earns-a-bright-future-for-joe-slovo-park-learner-with-seven-distinctions\/"},"modified":"2023-01-27T04:02:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T02:02:20","slug":"studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying before dawn earns seven distinctions for star Joe Slovo Park learner"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Peter%20Luhanga\/sinenjogomatric2022_crop.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Sinenjongo High principal Khuselwa Nopote (centre) celebrates with her top matric learners. Zintle Majwede (left) is the school\u2019s top maths learner and earned six distinctions, while Lisakanya Mlindi (right) secured seven distinctions. Photos: Peter Luhanga.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sinenjongo High\u2019s Lisakanya Mlindi, from Esqalo informal settlement, achieved seven distinctions, battling tough living conditions and Covid disruption.<\/li>\n<li>Zintle Majwede achieved six distinctions and was the school\u2019s top maths learner, despite living with her family in a rented room in a shared RDP house.<\/li>\n<li>Sinenjongo High\u2019s principal, Khuselwa Nopote, said the school\u2019s pass rate of 87.3% was down from last year, but \u201cwe\u2019re going to work on that.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lisakanya Mlindi would wake before dawn, when her clamorous neighbourhood is quietest, to concentrate on her matric studies. She shares a one-room shack with four other family members in the overcrowded Esqalo informal settlement in Joe Slovo Park, Milnerton.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>On 19 January Lisakanya, who attended Sinenjongo High in Joe Slovo Park, learned she had achieved seven distinctions, the only learner in her class to do so. Sinenjongo\u2019s 283 matriculants achieved a pass rate of 87.3%. Schools \u201ccull\u201d their learners who are not expected to pass matric, but this does not appear to have been a major factor here: 87% of those in grade 10 in 2020, the year the Covid pandemic started, wrote the matric exams in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Not only did Lisakanya cope with overcrowded conditions and a lack of municipal services, but her matric class struggled through the restrictions of the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was in grade 10 in 2020 when Covid struck. We went to school part time. We didn\u2019t attend any classes then. When I got into grade 11, it was hard,\u201d said Lisakanya.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was very noisy [at home] and I could not study,\u201d she said. So she applied to attend the Asset learning hub, which offers a venue for Grade 12 pupils to study together.<\/p>\n<p>She has been accepted at her first choice university, Stellenbosch, where she plans to study accounting.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Peter%20Luhanga\/lisakanya_and_nomalungisa.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Lisakanya Mlindi with her mother Nomalungisa Mlindi outside their one-room shack in the overcrowded Esqalo informal settlement in Joe Slovo Park, Milnerton.<\/p>\n<p>Her mother, Nomalungisa Mlindi, is a domestic worker. She was an alcoholic but quit drinking to set an example for her children.<\/p>\n<p>Nomalungisa said she was not surprised that her daughter did well as she worked hard, but that she had exceeded her expectations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom a very young age, she didn\u2019t like being absent from school. She didn\u2019t like going out, she was always indoors reading books,\u201d said Nomalungisa.<\/p>\n<p>She said her daughter sometimes had to use a cellphone torch to study, and her aunt would buy her cellphone data so that she could do internet research.<\/p>\n<p>Noise and overcrowded living conditions were also obstacles for fellow Sinenjongo student Zintle Majwede, 17, who achieved six distinctions.<\/p>\n<p>Zintle lives in Joe Slovo Park and will study pharmacy at the University of the Western Cape.<\/p>\n<p>Zintle was the school\u2019s top maths learner with a mark of 96%. She shares a rented room in an RDP house with her mother and siblings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reason I worked so hard to do better is because my mother is a single parent, she didn\u2019t pass matric, and also my elder sister didn\u2019t pass matric. I wanted to change my home situation. I want to buy my mom a house \u2026 I want to change the welfare of our family,\u201d said Zintle.<\/p>\n<p>She said her home is close to shebeens, and when other tenants in the house drink on weekends they end up quarrelling in the corridors.<\/p>\n<p>Zintle\u2019s mother, Nikiwe Majwede, says she was at work when her daughter sent her a text about her results. \u201cI cried. Thank God for protecting her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Peter%20Luhanga\/zintle_majwede__nikiwe_majwede.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Zintle Majwede and her mother Nikiwe in the room their family shares.<\/p>\n<p>Nikiwe said she and her other children sacrificed watching television in the evening to allow Zintle, often joined by her cousin, to study. \u201cOnly God knows how the children focussed. I managed to cook and wash all the dishes so the children could get enough time to study.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sinenjongo High\u2019s principal, Khuselwa Nopote, said the school\u2019s pass rate of 87.3% was down from 90.7% in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the reasons was the number of learners increasing every year. It\u2019s more learners for each subject. It\u2019s more challenging for the teachers but we will make a plan one way or the other,\u201d said Nopote.<\/p>\n<p>She said the Covid disruptions had also made it more difficult for the learners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was also a lack of commitment on the side of learners and lack of support on the side of parents. We had to push the learners all the time to do better,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t feel bad at all about the results even though I\u2019m disappointed about the drop, we\u2019re going to work on that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sinenjongo High principal Khuselwa Nopote (centre) celebrates with her top matric learners. Zintle Majwede (left) is the school\u2019s top maths learner and earned six distinctions, while Lisakanya Mlindi (right) secured seven distinctions. Photos: Peter Luhanga. Sinenjongo High\u2019s Lisakanya Mlindi, from Esqalo informal settlement, achieved seven distinctions, battling tough living conditions and Covid disruption. Zintle Majwede [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-248399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/studying-before-dawn-earns-seven-distinctions-for-star-joe-slovo-park-learner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}