It is the end of the second term and there are less than six months remaining before the 2024 academic year ends. For some learners it is all joy and excitement while for others it’s stress and anxiety.
According to Reggie Masuku Secondary School teacher Nkosiyethu Moyo, most of his Grade 12 learners are hoping to use this term’s results to apply for admission in higher education institutions. Moyo said that the pressure is high for learners as they are only left with one term to improve their academic performance if they did not perform well.
Numerous institutions of higher education have opened applications for those who want to enroll for undergraduate qualifications in 2025.
Moyo said there is no time to relax, especially for Grade 12 learners and that learners should use this time to study. He has been offering learners from Grade 10 to 12 extra classes since the beginning of the academic year and says he expects most of his learners to do well, considering all the efforts they have made in making certain that results improve from the first term.
“We had intervention meetings with parents of learners who did not perform well and we all committed that we will put in all the effort to assist learners where they do not understand. We had extra learners during Easter holidays and after school classes after the first term recess. First term is usually to introduce learners to their new grade lessons and some tend to take longer to adjust, while term two is where they are more comfortable and engage a lot in class,” Moyo said.
Grade 12 learner Boipelo Madisa says he considers the first two terms of the academic years as important as the rest of the terms. He is hoping that his hard work will produce the results he is hoping for to further his studies and says his plans are to use the second term’s results to apply at different higher education institutions.
“I want to study IT next year and I hope I did well this term. I struggled a bit in term one but made sure that I put in extra work to catch up and try to understand term one’s work. I finished with my exams this week and got a bit of rest. I am planning to use these holidays to study, so that I do not lose the momentum and make sure that I understand all of my subjects. We all received a lot of assistance from our teacher to prepare for these exams,” Madisa said.
Madisa, who is eager to pass his matric said that although this is a time to rest, he will only rest after the fourth and last term of the academic year.