Four years ago, KwaBhekilanga Secondary School in Alexandra was in the doldrums and became a tail-ender school where teachers and schoolchildren were openly cross hooking in class with impunity.
When I joined the Alex News beat a little more than a decade ago, I inherited a down and out school, a KwaBhekilanga that was in the dog box, where very little learning took place and the school was nothing more than a hookers’ den as teachers and school-goers openly exchanged love notes in class.
Female teachers were coming to school skimpily dressed and the then principal was powerless to control this untoward behaviour. Both teachers and pupils did as they pleased on the school grounds, including the Congress of South African Students and ANC Youth League members who, at one time, locked the school gates for months, literally shutting down all educational activity in the school.
Feuding and factional squabbles among teachers over posts were the order of the day, with one head of department caught in the wee hours of the night echela, or spraying muthi on school grounds in his undies.
All of these shenanigans, which continued unabated for many years, prompted a Sandton-based religious educational body to come into the picture in an effort to quell the goings-on. They organised workshops for the teachers, re-motivating them, set a dress code, instilled a work ethic and held team-building exercises and events, with the blessing of the then District 9 director of education.
All the efforts of the outsiders, who reinvigorated the morale of the teachers, the department of education’s intervention in putting administrative systems in place and changing principals the same way people change their undies, paid dividends as they finally got a man, Jubera Selowa, with the ability to change things.
Since his arrival, Selowa has turned around the fortunes of the school and moved it from a dysfunctional institution at the bottom of the results chain to a top performer for four years in a row, close to equalling the brilliant record of five-time straight top achiever held by Minerva Secondary School.
If KwaBhekilanga can cling onto this top achiever status for one more year at the end of this year again, the record of the two schools will be on par. Selowa has not only managed to turn the fortune tables of the school around, but as a strict disciplinarian, he has managed to also transform the negative mindset of the students into a winning mentality, and the results have followed.
Who would have thought four years ago that a laughing stock such as KwaBhekilanga would one day be at the top of the food chain? That it would be a straight four-time top achiever of the five high schools in Alex? That a dysfunctional KwaBhekilanga would one day become the envy of all? That the Alex community would one day jostle to place their children at the school?
But here it is today, the hard work of all those involved in its long journey of renewal and transformation, including the role played by the media, has paid off. Both the department and the Sandton community organisation trusted me and decided to take me under their wing as I attended all activities and witnessed first-hand all the transformational programmes of the school.
Halala KwaBhekilanga halala!
Read: KwaBhekilanga on top, yet again
