Five classrooms at Ngubesizwe Senior Secondary School, in a dusty village outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, are occupied by grade 8 and grade 10 pupils during the day.
At night, these classrooms are converted into makeshift dormitories for 68 grade 12 pupils, who have been “camping” at the school since March to prepare for the matric exams.
The school does not have hostel facilities and pupils are forced to sleep on sponge mattresses on the concrete floor.
At 4am, they start queuing to collect hot water, which is boiled on four three-legged pots.
After covering the windows with blankets for privacy, they use large, plastic containers to bath.
To add to their woes, they and the school’s 810 other pupils, as well as its 32 teachers, are forced to use its 12 unhygienic pit latrines.
But the grade 12s, who are determined to achieve top results in the matric exams, say these are small sacrifices to make.
Anathi Kratshana, 17, who wants to become a teacher, said they are trying to cope with their studies even though there is no hot water and they have to use pit latrines.
“On top of that, the Eskom load-shedding is a very serious challenge. Pupils become demotivated because of the electricity disruptions but I am determined to do my best to pass,” Kratshana said.
His classmate, Sibahle Mgudlwa, 17, agreed that load-shedding is an added problem.
“It will affect our performance in maths because we did not get sufficient time to revise,” he said.
Their studies were disrupted on the eve of writing the maths paper 1 last Friday and maths paper 2 on Monday because of power outages.
Mendo Gqobo, a matric maths literacy teacher, said one of her colleagues, Onele Mfengu, could not conduct a two-hour revision programme on Monday night for pupils writing economics the following day because of load-shedding.
“When there’s no electricity, it means teachers can’t revise any work with learners. Load-shedding will affect the learners’ performance in the exams.”
Gqobo described the lack of proper ablution facilities at the school as “dire”.
The school’s principal, Silekwa Mawabo, said parents of the matrics who were camping at school each scraped up R470 a month to pay for their food.
We are trying by all means to produce results and our teachers and learners are making huge sacrifices. Our children have come out of the exam rooms with smiles on their faces, so we are expecting a 100% pass rate.
— Ngubesizwe Senior Secondary School principal Silekwa Mawabo
“We are trying by all means to produce results and our teachers and learners are making huge sacrifices,” Mawabo said.
Teachers conduct revision classes in the evenings between 7pm and 9pm.
“Our children have come out of the exam rooms with smiles on their faces, so we are expecting a 100% pass rate,” Mawabo said.
Meanwhile, Thomas Hlongwane, principal of Pretoria Central High School, said he advised matrics last Friday, when Eskom announced stage 4 load-shedding, to come to the school and study until 4pm when they were not writing.
“This option was aimed at mitigating the effect of load-shedding that pupils may have experienced the previous night. Teachers revise with them but they can also study independently at school.”
Hlongwane, who is also president of the South African Principals’ Association in Gauteng, said principals have complained bitterly about the impact that load-shedding is having on the exams.
“We are crossing our fingers and hoping for the best but we encourage the children to ensure they study as hard as they can during the day, whether it’s at home or school.”
A senior teacher at Noordheuwel High in Krugersdorp said their pupils were fortunate because the area is not affected by load-shedding.
“The school bought a generator for R500,000 at the beginning of last year but it has not been used,” he said.
Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools CEO Jaco Deacon said the power outages were not only affecting the matric exams but the internal exams being written by pupils in grades 8 to 11 as well.
“Schools are scrambling during the exams to move learners from one venue to another for sufficient light. However, the biggest disruption is when learners are revising for the next day’s exams and there’s suddenly load-shedding.”
He said they had advised schools before the exams to see how they could help pupils by providing, for example, rechargeable lamps to those from poor backgrounds.
Rufus Poliah, the basic education department’s chief director for public exams and assessments, told parliament on Tuesday they had asked provincial education departments to organise generators for the mark-capturing process.
“The period for mark-capture is limited and we cannot have Eskom interrupting our plans. Generators will have to be looked at as an option.” he said.
