I will never forget the time I was in Grade 11. That year changed everything. I had transferred to a new school, leaving behind the place where I spent Grade 8 to 10. And let me tell you—what I saw, what I experienced, and what I survived in both schools? It deserves a documentary. Or at least a viral blog post. So here we are.
Let's talk about teachers. Specifically, the ones who should've picked literally any other career path. You know the type: the ones who only start "teaching" properly when a supervisor or someone from the department decides to inspect the school. Suddenly, it's Oscar-worthy performances and freshly printed slides. But when those big names leave? Boom. Back to reading slides word-for-word, as if we didn’t pass Grade R.
Seriously—why do some teachers think their job is just to read PowerPoint slides? We can read. We passed Grade 1. We don’t need someone standing in front of us doing karaoke with bullet points.
Let me rewind to Grade 10. I had a Mathematical Literacy teacher who was a miracle sent from the heavens. When she taught you something, it stuck in your brain. Like magic. She'd explain, draw things on the board, and suddenly numbers made sense. I mean, I had been bad at maths my whole life—tragically bad—until she came along. But then... she left. Salary issues, principal drama, and of course, naughty kids driving her insane. She left for a better life, and honestly, she deserved it.
A week later, they brought in a replacement.
Yoh. That’s when everything went downhill. My math grades started to collapse. I went from miracle to madness real quick. And yes, if you're in South Africa, you know what a Code 3 means on your report card. That was me. Barely hanging on.
The new teacher? He read slides. Not even relevant ones. Sometimes he’d go on and on about nasty stuff—things that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject. And the favoritism? Through the roof. If you weren’t on his favorites list, you were invisible.
But I made it. Somehow. And then came Grade 11.
New school. New battles. I had to drop History—yes, my beloved History—and take Accounting. A whole subject switch. At first, it was frustrating, but then I got this teacher. And bless her—she could teach. She repeated herself as much as needed (thank God for patient educators), especially because I was behind and some kids had been doing Accounting since Grade 8. But she didn’t give up.
I actually passed. I got a Code 3 in Term 1, and it was the most shocking, happiest Code 3 of my life.
Then she got pregnant. (By another teacher, by the way—school gossip 101.) And just like that, maternity leave took her away. For months. The replacement? A whole new disaster. She couldn’t teach to save her life. She gave us notes with “hints,” scribbled on the board like she was painting abstract art, and somehow still managed to mark our exams wrong. Yes, we had to go correct the teacher on her marking.
And just like that, my Accounting fell apart:
Term 2: Code 2.
Term 3: Code 1.
Term 4: Still Code 1. Tragic.
By some twist of fate, I ended up back in History. Full circle.
This is my story, but it’s also the story of so many students. Too many teachers are hired like it’s a game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo. Where are the qualifications? The passion? The proper interviews? Like, do principals just say, “You look good, you’re hired”? Because that’s how it feels.
And when teachers don’t care—when they show up just to hold space, read slides, and collect salaries—students suffer. Future doctors, lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs… we all fall behind.
To all the passionate teachers out there: thank you. To the rest… maybe it’s time for a career change.
Let’s stop playing with education. Because it’s not just grades at stake. It’s our futures.
— A fed-up but surviving student of the South African school system
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