Effingham Secondary School was beaming with excitement on Monday and Tuesday when their grade 12 pupil, Dipika Somaroo was placed first in the top-achiever category for quintile 4 nationally, and was also placed fourth provincially in the uMlazi District. She obtained seven distinctions in the subjects: physical science, life sciences, Afrikaans, English, mathematics, accounting and life orientation.
Despite studying under trying conditions, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dipika managed to focus and excel. Speaking to the Durban North News, Dipika said that like any other grade 12 pupil, she was anxious and uncertain about her academic future, yet, she managed to focus her thoughts and composed herself, working consistently and relying on her strong faith. “I was able to motivate myself in order to ensure that my earlier years of dedication would not go to waste,” she said.
The young woman is driven and has always been a top-achiever at school, earning numerous awards throughout her grades. Dipika said she intends to enrol for medicine, either at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Medicine or the University of Cape Town. “I believe that I will be able to uplift the social wellbeing of others by practicing as a doctor,” she said.
Dipika said her role model is her father who has provided her with a moral compass and modelled an excellent work ethic with sound values. “The pandemic of violence against women and children is a great concern, which I feel should be addressed urgently,” she said. Dipika said she would like to create awareness and be an agent for change. Her advice to the class of 2021 is that they should retain their academic focus in the face of the ongoing pandemic. She said that a healthy balance of all aspects of one’s life is essential on the journey to success.
Sharing her favourite quote, by Nelson Mandela, Dipika said: “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of a farm worker can become the president of a great nation.”
Angie Motshekga, the Department of Basic Education minister, announced the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results on Monday and said that the 2020 academic year will be remembered as the year that not only presented major health challenges, but a year when the entire world was engulfed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The minister said that government, with its education departments and its strategic partners, worked very hard to strike a balance between saving lives and the 2020 academic year. She said: “The total number of candidates, who registered for the 2020 NSC exams was 725 034, comprising 607 226 full-time candidates, and 117 808 part-time candidates.”
Motshekga added: “In additional to the full-time and part-time candidates who enrolled for the 2020 NSC exams, we combined the November 2020 NSC examinations with the June 2020 Senior Certificate, and June 2020 NSC exams.
This increased the number of candidates who wrote the combined 2020 November exams to a record of 1 054 321 candidates.”
She said that 3 026 of the progressed pupils, achieved Bachelor passes, 10 107 obtained Diploma passes, 11 088 obtained Higher Certificate passes and 11 obtained the NSC passes, and a total of 1 655 distinctions, including distinctions in critical subjects, such as accounting, business studies, economics, mathematics and physical science.
