The joy of seeing a black child receiving quality education and succeeding.
These are the two things that drive Dithothwaneng Senior Secondary School teacher Mokolwane Masweneng to push for academic excellence at his school and among his pupils.
And this had paid off with the school achieving a near 100% pass rate in the subject he teaches — English — in the 2023 National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams.
Masweneng was one of two South African teachers nominated for the Global Teacher Prize 2023.
Masweneng's home province, Limpopo, came seventh place nationally with 79.5% and was recognised as the best improved province by minister of basic education Angie Motshekga.
“It is remarkable to note that the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo — the three most rural provinces in the country — produced 50.9% of the total bachelor passes. In addition, these three most rural provinces, produced 59.0% of the total passes with distinction,” Motshekga noted.
Dithothwaneng achieved a similar rate to the province, obtaining a 79.7% pass rate — up from 57.9% in 2022. This signifies a 21.8% jump.
The school achieved a 99.2% pass rate in Masweneng's subject, English first additional language. This is up from the 97% obtained in the 2022 matric year when 139 out of 142 pupils passed.
He also teaches history and geography on Saturdays and during the school holidays at Kgati ya Moshate and Tetema secondary schools in the Mogalakwena district in Mokopane. The two schools achieved 84.7% and 95.1% respectively.
Speaking after the release of the results, Masweneng shared his joy at the school's improved performance and the effort that went into achieving this.
“Everyone is happy. There are a few pupils who got distinctions in my subject and a few others. Every teacher is excited because every subject improved.
“Our pupils did very well. They have escaped a lot of challenges that are around them. We are in a rural community where a lot of things are happening. There's teenage pregnancy, drug abuse.”
The road to success was not smooth sailing. Masweneng spoke of the challenges of getting every teacher on board when making the necessary improvements.
Among these were the difficult task of motivating near-retirement teachers who had no interest in improving the school's standing as well systematic challenges within education.
Masweneng says he overcame this by pushing hard and working to “influence everyone around me to work hard to change the system and to make sure that we transform the lives of young people”.
“It really feels so good to see such an improvement coming through and it is something that I really wanted to see happening because one of the most important things that I want to see happening is the life of a black child improving every day.
“It's not something I do expecting a reward or anything. I am doing it in a way of ensuring that I'm exercising my responsibility to make sure that a black child receives quality education.”
Masweneng focused on motivating his pupils to be the best they can be, to help those underperforming and ensure that all three educators teaching English from grade 8 to 12 “pulled from the same cart” in terms of teaching style.
“I lost one pupil. I really struggled to assist this pupil, I expected it in fact. There were five of them who I worked with from August. They were underperforming to be honest and ultimately out of the five, four made it and one was left behind. But I expected it because I had to work on them, and unfortunately, he could not come up,” he said.
Three of his pupils achieved distinctions in the subject while 123 ultimately passed.
Masweneng told TimesLIVE Premium he expected this performance because “normally when I teach my pupils, I don't teach them to be underlings. I teach them to the level of my expectation.
“If I am the best teacher, it means I'm teaching the best pupils.”
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