I would not readily believe that kind of claim from any top-notch school in the country; I certainly found it difficult to believe at the Ethembeni Enrichment Centre, situated in a run-down area of Port Elizabeth.
Nothing in the school suggested that the children had a fair chance.
The school building was run-down and the classrooms were barely furnished. The driveway to the school was a rocky, narrow passage that you could exit only by reversing.
The school hall was packed with a few hundred eager faces, the children virtually sitting on top of one other on the floor.
As I studied each face from the makeshift platform that accommodated some of the teachers and my recruiting team from the university, I saw struggle, hunger and poverty etched into each child's countenance.
No, for any child to pass under these difficult circumstances, it would take a miracle.
But a miracle is what we got.
Suddenly, in this drab building packed with human bodies, the children started to sing. They came alive with joy, dancing and laughter as one of the senior girls led the singing. The moving rendition of The Lord's Prayer in Xhosa brought tears to the eyes of my colleagues. This was goose-bump stuff.
As visitors, we were all moved by the spirit of the school as teachers praised pupils and as pupils welcomed the visitors.
We joined in the uplifting songs and danced with the children.
Something was going on here that I did not see in some of the plush schools of Eastern Cape.
How did the teachers and the principal create this high-spirited learning environment? The answer was, as usual, disarmingly simple, and was reflected in what the school calls "non-negotiables", the specifics of which were pasted onto the walls:
- Class attendance is compulsory;
- Students must be punctual;
- Students must complete all given homework;
- Students must keep the school grounds neat and tidy; and
- Parental involvement's essential.
There you are. Nothing complex. Nothing requiring millions of rands. Nothing requiring years of research. And no hand-wringing nonsense about if children were taught in their indigenous tongue, academic results would improve.
"Our medium of instruction is English," says the school brochure, pure and simple.
A simple set of commitments is all you need to change a school. Here there is no need to instruct teachers on what to do; the rules are about the responsibility of parents and students.
What really fascinated me was the motto of the school: "Avoid the soft option."
The message was clear that Ethembeni was not going to pander to the new ideology of schooling in South Africa, namely, to lower expectations so that students can pass with less than 50% in some subjects and score ridiculously high marks in that meaningless subject, "life orientation".
This school worked with a fundamental principle of good education: When you demand high standards of children, they rise to meet those standards, irrespective of their socio-economic circumstances.
Expect little from pupils and they will perform accordingly.
Once a finishing school for second-chance pupils, Ethembeni is now one of the top three of the more than 70 schools in the Port Elizabeth district - ranking alongside very expensive schools in the area. One student received 100% in Grade 12 mathematics.
One external expert noted: "Ethembeni has broken the mould of failure, disillusionment, apathy and (sometimes) anarchy" of many township schools.
Yes, of course, the school still needs curtains, painting, laboratories, sanding and varnishing of floors, and decent ablution blocks. It needs teaching materials.
But what it already has is priceless: dedicated teachers, spirited pupils, involved parents - and a determination to succeed.
"Ethembeni" means "place of hope".