The real world is very different to life in high school.
Two top matric achievers from the class of 2021 in the Western Cape shared this sentiment as results were released this week for the class of 2022.
Timothy Wilson, 19, and Prisca Kihali, 20, were among a group of matrics who defied the odds to achieve top marks at Scottsville Secondary School in Kraaifontein, Cape Town.
Despite crime and gangsterism gripping the surrounding community, the class of 2021 managed to double the school’s pass rate from 29.5% in 2020 to 64% in 2021.
Wilson, the school’s top achiever, planned to study dentistry, but things did not go according to plan. “Unfortunately I could not go to university,” he said.
“I needed pure maths to do dentistry. It was quite stressful when I found out that I could not study last year. I had to give the university a few calls, and eventually I found out that there wasn’t enough space. I am just saving up a bit to do a bridging course for that. I want to do dentistry.”
The real world what I had expected. My plan was to study after high school, but I have been struggling with admission. I also don’t have an ID [card] yet.
— Prisca Kihali, 20
Wilson said he had, meanwhile, enrolled to do a wholesale and retail learnership at the College of Cape Town. “I am gaining practical knowledge in the workplace and doing theory at college. It was a new experience. I used to go to stores every day, but I didn’t know how they actually operated,” he said.
He advised new matriculants to anticipate some disappointment in the “real world” but urged them not to give up when confronted by obstacles: “The real world is much different from high school.”
Kihali, from the Congo, was the second top pupil at the school despite her first languages being Lingala and French. She aced all her subjects in Afrikaans and wanted to study medicine.
“The real world is not what I had expected. My plan was to study after high school, but I have been struggling with admission. I also don’t have an ID [card] yet. That is one of the problems. I wanted to study medicine. But I have to do nursing before I pursue medicine.”
Tapping into her life experiences over the past year she said: “One thing I would say to the matric student [now] is that we don’t always get the exact outcome we expect.
“They just need to know that they did their best. At the school I went to, there were kids whose circumstances were very difficult. There were gangsters in the community, but we made history at the school. It made me happy that I was part of that group. We went through a lot, emotionally and financially. It was very difficult, but we gave our all.
“I am speaking from the experience. Even if you don’t get the result you expected to get, be proud of yourself.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.