When teachers at St Johns College High told grade 11 pupil Mbali Zweni he would be going to Germany later this year, as part of an exchange programme, he initially thought someone was playing a cruel joke on him.
“It felt too good to be true. I thought they were just playing with me, and we would be going to Johannesburg. When I found out it was true, I was left gasping in disbelief. I felt special because we have more than 2,000 pupils at the school and they had chosen me for this programme.”
Zweni is one of four pupils at the Mthatha-based school who will spend a week in September at the Nelson Mandela School in Berlin, as part of the school’s exchange programme.
The school was founded by the Berlin state government and is a member of the Unesco’s Associated Schools Project, the European Council of International Schools and International Baccalaureate Organisation.
The other three St Johns College pupils joining Zweni are grade 11 pupil Lamla Siyahluma and grade 10 pupils Ombeswa Mazwi and Shantel Sizani.
Speaking to the Dispatch at a welcoming ceremony for their four German counterparts, Can Yilmaz, Max Dinke, Lora Croasdal and Fanny Newworth, 15-year-old Sizani said she was still trying to make sense of her luck.
“My first reaction was disbelief. I didn’t believe I would be the chosen one. Everyone could have been chosen in my place.”
She said the Nelson Mandela School in Berlin had a reputation for being one of the world's top maths and science schools. She hopes to study law after school.
Yilmaz, who is of Turkish descent, said their school was a diverse melting pot of different cultures.
“We always study inequality around the world. But now with this programme we get to share and learn SA history and culture. However, instead of relying on history, we can make our own documentary about inequalities. This programme is about creating something from our own experiences and not just reading books and watching TV.”
The German delegation will spend at least 10 days in the Eastern Cape.
The exchange programme is the brainchild of Mqanduli-born Mamela Fuzile, who works for the SA education department.
She said the ANC’s longest serving president, Oliver Tambo, once said that a nation that did not care about its children, did not care about its future.
“This partnership will make a huge difference on their CVs. They can say, ‘we once represented SA in Germany’.”
St Johns College principal Zolisa Magaqa called it history in the making. He said the German delegation’s arrival coincided with St Johns College celebrating 145 years.
Nelson Mandela Museum board member Dr Andile Nontso, filling in for KSD mayor Nyaniso Nelani at the welcoming event, told the German visitors that unemployment was rife in Mthatha. He was aware that in Germany, at least 85% of the students were involved in technical education.
“We hope this will be one of the focus areas, as we would like to learn a lot from you. We are still very far from where we would like to be as a country. We love Germany. Some of our best engineers and architects were developed in that country,” he said.
History and politics teacher at the Berlin school, Paul Curtis, who also serves as co-ordinator of the exchange programme, said Germany also had to rebuild and rebrand itself after World War 2 in 1945. And like SA, it has endured a traumatic history.
“I still think there are legacies that you can see and still have to deal with in SA. In Germany we also have these dark echoes in our history.”
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