I also applaud all the learners who worked hard enough to pass their 2017 matriculation examinations. We hope that this will spur all of you towards your ultimate dream to achieve your highest academic aspirations at the universities or technical institutions of your choice.
Of course, it is now up to each one of you to take that bold step forward and make sure that education is the key to your future.
I also raise both thumbs to those of you who managed to manoeuvre through life’s difficulties and survive the many perilous trials facing our country’s youth today. We all know how teenage pregnancy, drugs, crime and many other social ills are destroying the youth.
I know because I have witnessed how these social impediments have ruined the lives of many ambitious young people in our townships. I was also born and raised in a township many moons ago and I have also raised my own children who were the same age as you at some stage, so I understand what it is like to grow up in the townships as a young person.
The fact that most of you have managed to survive all this and still get to where you find yourselves today, is in itself a compliment to each one of you. Your family, relatives, neighbours, peers as well as the community, all look up you as trendsetters and an encouragement to your peers.
We all know how hard it is for a teenager growing up in the townships. many are often unguided and uncared for. Most of them wriggle through life and still manage to come out at the other end untouched and untainted. I implore you to keep up the desire to hold on to your education dreams to the very end. With so much uncertainty currently being waved in the air about the state of tertiary education at our universities, I pray and hope that sanity will prevail and that our leaders will do what is right for your future and that of our beloved country.
I further wish you well in the different career choices you’ve made to further your tertiary education at the university or technical institutions of your choice. I believe and hope that at the end of your tertiary education each one of you will not hesitate to plough your acquired skills back into to the very communities that are applauding you for passing your matric exams today.
And to those who didn’t make it: Do not despair because failure does not mean the end of your schooling life. Get up and stand, pull up your socks and fasten your bootstraps and step right back onto the treadmill.
Chances are you may come out of the other end a far better person than the one you thought you’d have been had you made it this year. Maybe the Higher Force up there feels you’re just not yet ready for the forward step to university right now.
Do not let your ‘failure’ draw you into a depressive mood and a feeling of worthlessness. Remember, things always tend to work a lot better the second time around. You do not want to end up like the hundreds of teenagers around the country who lost hope after failing matric and today find themselves in an even worse situation than they expected.
