Rural school benefits from US ties
Neville Maakana
10 March 2005
A rural school in Limpopo is benefiting from a 20-year relationship with the United States embassy in Pretoria.
Paul Lebepe, the principal of Malabosane High School in Rita village in Tzaneen, said the embassy has given his school an administration block, a number of classrooms and learning materials, and that many of its learners have gone to the US on trips sponsored by the embassy.
"A whole new world has opened up for our learners, and this has had a positive impact on our results", Lebepe said.
For the first time, the school achieved a 100 percent matric pass rate in 2004 after its Grade 12 pupils participated in various US Embassy education programmes.
In April this year, scholars will exchange views and ideas with their counterparts at Olympic High in North Carolina.
The exchange will take place via satellite from the embassy's auditorium, allowing pupils from the two schools to meet "face to face" and discuss issues like
globalisation and the worldwide impact of the recent tsunami disaster in South East Asia.
They will also share stories from their local newspapers and debate the necessity of school uniforms. "They will make new friends while learning more about global events and issues", Lebepe said.
He said the school's relationship with the embassy began in 1985, when he was helping to set up a community library and approached several foreign embassies to raise funds.
"The American Embassy helped us a lot to achieve our dream and a good relationship was established."
In 1986 the school only had three classrooms. Today it has two blocks of classrooms, administration offices and accommodates 826 learners.
In 1998, Lebepe was invited to the US to see how their schools were run. Two years later, two of his pupils attended a youth conference in the US. One of them, Sidney Makumo, is now studying for a degree in international politics at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Officials from the embassy also visit the school regularly.
"We went to the US embassy because of poverty, and now the lives of our learners have been enriched beyond our wildest dreams", Lebepe said.
Source: BuaNews
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