urban education:
South Africa

PORTFOLIO:

Urban Education

GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:

South Africa

ORGANIZATION:

Dell Young Leaders

SUMMARY:

While the 1994 end of Apartheid brought an equalization of government spend across black and white students, it has not closed the gap in education quality or outcomes. Overall, only one percent of South Africa’s students graduate from university. Among students of color, the rate is far lower. In 2003 only 55 African language entrants for the final school examinations in the Western Cape (where Cape Town is located) achieved scores necessary for higher study in science and math.

The foundation launched the Dell Young Leaders Program in 2010 to provide high-achieving, underserved South African students of color with comprehensive support to help them complete university and enter into the professional sector. The first cohort included 25 students from townships across South Africa; by 2014, the program is expected to serve 400 students at multiple top-tier universities.

Bongeka Ndlovu, Dell Young Leader:

Growing up, I lived with my father’s family. Then in 2006, my father died. His family couldn’t keep us, and my mother lived in a single-room. So my brother and sister and I went to live with her uncle in another township nearby. I call him my grandfather.

Then, when I was in high school, I looked around and said, ‘I don’t have a father, and my mother isn’t working. If my grandfather dies, it would be back to square one. We’d have nothing and no place to go.’ So I told myself, ‘I’ll make sure I get high marks so I can get an education and a job.’ I wanted to go to school at the University of Cape Town, but it was really going to be a burden on my grandfather to further my studies. So I started going online in the deputy principal’s office after school and looking for bursaries.

JIBA NGCOBO, Minister, Umlazi Township

The township where Bongeka grew up — it’s a basic, basic kind of a place, including the schools. One big problem that affects all the youth is the scourge of AIDS. It disintegrates our hopes. Too often, we pinpoint somebody as a great leader in the future, and this disease comes along and knocks them down. But we have high hopes that the disease will not reach Bongeka. You always worry when a child like Bongeka is doing well. You think, ‘Hey, how is she going to continue her studies to achieve the highest goals that she has in her heart?’ That’s always a worry all the time. When the news broke that she’d managed to get this bursary, we saw it as an answer to our prayers.

MAHALINGHAM PADAYACHEE, Principal, Reunion Secondary School

This school services 100 percent historically disadvantaged learners. When Bongeka did her grade 12 matric, we were all really anxious and eager to get her results, because we knew that she was our high flyer. But when the results came out, her grades had been switched with another girl with the same name. We had to go through massive amounts of paper, thousands of documents, to get it sorted out. But now that Bongeka is making it at UCT, she can make it at any university in the world. And once the young people see that someone from this township, can succeed, there will be others striving to follow her. When I address the great halls or the assembly, it’s Bongeka that’s the example that we speak about as someone who had a very clear vision, who believed in herself and who is successful.