Thembeka Secondary School (Kanyamazane)

Okay so Thembeka Secondary in Kanyamazane, Mpumalanga. 965 learners and 27 teachers. Broe, that is not a school, that is a taxi rank with a blackboard. One teacher is out here trying to teach 35 kids at the same time, which means by the time the teacher gets to the last row, the kids in the front have already forgotten what subject they are in. The teacher is not teaching, they are surviving. And that 79.6% matric pass rate, hey. Not bad, not bad. But also not great. That is like bragging that your team scored a goal, but you still lost the match. Almost 20% of those kids went through the whole circus, survived 27 teachers between 965 learners, and still did not make it over the line. Kanyamazane deserved better from that result, and honestly the result deserved better support from the system. Because look, this school is clearly running on grit and very little else. The learner to educator ratio is genuinely painful. Someone in Pretoria is sitting in a nice office deciding that one teacher for 36 teenagers is totally fine, and those teachers in Kanyamazane are just quietly making it work anyway. That is not a school administration flex, that is a teacher flex. Overall verdict: Thembeka Secondary is basically a masterclass in doing a lot with very little, which is impressive and also a massive indictment of everyone who was supposed to give them more.