One of the new doctors who graduated at Stellenbosch University yesterday had particular reason to thank the family who were there to cheer his achievement. When he was in Grade 11, Luthando Vazi was taken in by Helen Peremore, one of his high school teachers, who recognised his potential.He had been raised by his alcoholic father after his mother died when he was young."It was not nice as a child. I was basically raising myself," he said.He left his father's home at 14 to live with his grandmother, but she also died.Vazi moved back in with his father and his new wife, who both physically abused him."I got a beating every single night. It really broke me growing up like that," he said.He also started experimenting with alcohol and drugs, but help came in the form of Peremore, his Afrikaans teacher at David Livingstone High School in Port Elizabeth, who took him in.Peremore said yesterday that Vazi, now 26, became like her own child - she has four children of her own, aged between 17 and 28."He was diligent, and neat. He spoke all languages fluently. He told me he wanted to be a doctor and I said 'don't stop, pursue your dream'."Vazi said the Peremore family "changed my compass of what family should be. They became my idea of what normal should be".Due to an administrative error, Vazi's matric results were captured inaccurately, but he enrolled in Stellenbosch's SciMathUS class, an intensive, holistic, year-long university preparation programme designed to help 100 students a year improve their results and reapply.The programme's marketing manager, Anneke Müller, said: "The grades of students who have participated in the programme in the past 15 years have on average improved by 15 percentage points in the core subjects (mathematics and physical science)."She said 154 students from the programme had obtained a bachelor's degree, 46 a second qualification (honours or a postgraduate diploma or certificate) and 12 a master's degree.Two former SciMathUS students obtained PhD degrees last year...