Obituary: Isaac Kubeka: Inspirational headmaster

Isaac Kubeka, who has died at the age of 77, was the kind of headmaster that legends are made of.

For 27 years, he was the headmaster of Vukuzakhe High School in Durban's Umlazi township.

His pupils came from some of the poorest homes in the country, and he turned them into chartered accountants, medical doctors, engineers, newspaper editors, playwrights and successful businessmen and women.

Under him, Vukuzakhe High consistently achieved 100% matric pass rates. Shell and Anglo American came to his school for candidates for their prestigious academic bursaries.

The Foundation for Research and Development recognised it as one of the top three "black" schools in the country, and it was singled out for a visit by Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1995.

In the face of considerable opposition, Kubeka ruled that pupils should be at school from 6.30am until 5pm. His rationale was that the home environment for most of his pupils was not conducive to learning. He would be there at least half an hour earlier, and invariably he was the last to leave.

After holidays, he would be at school at least a week before anyone else to ensure that the grounds and classrooms were clean, the equipment was in working order and textbooks and stationery were ready and waiting for the new term.

Although an eminent author of novels in Zulu (one of them a prescribed setwork for matric), he made it a rule that English should be the only medium of communication between pupils, and between pupils and teachers, inside and outside the classroom. His former pupils were recognisable by their impeccable English.

Kubeka, who had a fierce frown, was an imposing figure and a disciplinarian, but never raised his voice and didn't use corporal punishment, even when it was legal.

He didn't need to. He was as much liked and respected by teachers and pupils, a number of whom became teachers because of his example. After qualifying, they invariably asked to teach under him.

His severest sanction was to read the riot act to offending children in front of their parents. As a result, there were very few repeat offenders.

He insisted on a strict dress code for pupils and teachers. Male teachers had to wear jackets and ties. Female teachers wore skirts with respectable hemlines.

The subject closest to his heart was World War 2, and his greatest hero was Winston Churchill.

Churchill's famous speech - "Never, never, never give up" - was often on his lips. It inspired him, and he used it to inspire his pupils. He liked to tell them how, before he became prime minister, Churchill had been considered a failure and written off by many. But he rose above that, as Kubeka expected his pupils to rise above their own disadvantages.

He loved choral music and when his favourite hymn, Fight the Good Fight, was sung, he would stand as straight as a ramrod and stare into the heavens .

He kept a large graph in his office, a barometer of the health of his school. Excellence, such as a student coming in the top 10 of the science Olympiad, would send the graph up one point. An incidence of bad behaviour would send it down 10 points. He would brandish his graph before pupils at assembly and point to it as if it were a map of occupied Europe and the school hall was his wartime ops room.

His gravest expression of disappointment, which he used with particular reference to the deterioration of once-proud township schools (including his own after he retired), was, with a sad shake of the head, "How the mighty have fallen."

Kubeka was born on March 3 1933 on a farm in the district of Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal. He matriculated at Pholela High and obtained a BA in Zulu and history from the University of Fort Hare. In 1961, he obtained a BA (Hons) from the University of Natal, followed in 1981 by an MA. He began teaching in 1956 and became a principal in 1961. He became head of Vukuzakhe High in 1972 and retired in 1998.

In 1995, he was made an honorary doctor of education by the University of Zululand. He is survived by his widow, Cecilia, and six children.