Mayor Tau rewards Jozi’s top matric achievers

18 February 2016

 

Every day after school last year, 19-year-old Jeffrey Mahlangu spent at least four hours thoroughly and meticulously going through his day’s work.

 

Yesterday, the former Diepsloot Secondary School matric learner was among 20 pupils from no-fee schools in Johannesburg who were rewarded by the City and leading information technology company Dimension Data for producing excellent matric results.

They each received vouchers totalling R10 000 from Johannesburg Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau and Member of the Mayoral Committee for Corporate Services and Shared Services Councillor Mally Mokoena to cover their university registration fees and to buy laptops, cellphones and textbooks. This is the second year in a row that the City has partnered with the private sector to reward academic excellence in no-fee high schools.

Mayor Tau said education was a great leveller and the key to breaking the cycle of poverty that continued to plague many of the city’s communities.

“Today we’re celebrating excellence. These schools are a shining example of overcoming adversity,” he said.

Congratulating the top achievers, MMC Mokoena said: “We believe that education and training is a basic human right and that all individuals should have access to lifelong education and training irrespective of race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation and physical or mental disabilities.”

The Mayor said Johannesburg and the country needed young people with knowledge and skills across a wide range of disciplines.

“Matric is a culmination of hard work but you are not done, it’s not your stop but the first step towards improvement journey into knowledge and skills. You need to study to empower yourselves and solve our social problems.”

Werner Kapp, Dimension Data’s Gauteng Regional Executive, said his company remained committed to helping young South Africans take active steps towards accelerating their ambitions and realising their dreams.

“We are proud to be associated with this great initiative by the City of Joburg and look forward to seeing the success stories of these outstanding learners,” he said.

Mahlangu, who has enrolled for a BA degree in politics at the University of Johannesburg and who is also a recipient of a bursary from the Gauteng City Region Academy, said this assistance would help ease pressure on his father, his family’s sole breadwinner.

“There was no way my family could afford to put me through varsity,” said Mahlangu, who achieved a 72.5% aggregate pass and attained two distinctions.