LETTER | Congratulatory message to retired Walmer High principal Lunga Dyani

In his 34-year career, Walmer High principal Lunga Dyani unassumingly, with great modesty and zeal, slogged in pursuit of his, and our, mission for the true emancipation of an African child so that their lives are better than that of their often desperately poor parents and forebears.

The founding father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, eloquently sums up our mission in his often quoted statement:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world …

“It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation.

“It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

And so we celebrate a hero in a frontier of our struggle, beyond the demise of apartheid in 1994, that were we to get right stood to fundamentally transform the socioeconomic relations of the era of oppression.

We need to be reminded of the oppressor’s mission, not just in our country, but elsewhere in the world which was the very antithesis of what Dyani sought to achieve.

Theirs was to ensure that black people would be condemned to a perpetual condition of subservient labourer. They would be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

The crisis of education in our country stems from our failure to effectively uplift schools in African and coloured communities.

This has condemned a large majority of our people to the margins of society characterised by high levels of unemployment, poverty and unbearable social ills.

Dyani would insist that he was not alone in the journey we are celebrating today.

We therefore also celebrate the many unsung heroes of this old and noble profession who honour their calling and acquit themselves with distinction in often demoralising, disheartening and trying conditions that schools in these communities can sometimes turn out to be.

Dyani has been the principal of Walmer High School for 27 of the 31 years of a free SA.

In that time, the education outcomes of his school have surpassed those of government nationally; and even more so his Eastern Cape province.

We celebrate Dyani’s remarkable journey, because it exemplifies what can be achieved even where the odds are stacked against you.

My dear brother, you now have every right to stand on roof tops and say it loud — against all the odds I have done it — and so can you. We desperately need your inspiration.

The DBE reveals that the throughput rate (the number of learners who started grade 10 and completed grade 12) for the matric class of 2024 was 64.5%.

In other words, 35.5% of those are now part of the unemployment statistics; we nonetheless hope that some would have been absorbed by the FET sector.

Contrast that with what Dyani was able to register as his parting shot in 2024. A matric pass rate of 96.2% with 105 of those learners qualifying for bachelor degree admission at our universities.

A review of the last seven years of his tenure records a sustained annual improvement of the school’s matric results in every one of those years from 73.6% in 2017 (with 15 of those being bachelor passes) to 96.2% in 2024 (with 105 of those being bachelor passes).

This is no mean feat especially when you consider the school.

WHS is designated a quintile 3 school by the DBE. That means its learners are drawn from households too poor to afford the education of their children and, therefore, the school is a no-fee-paying school.

Unlike its former model C peers where the school governing body (SGB) sets fees and parents pay; and an income budget for which funds are raised from the same parents, alumni and well-placed networks in business and elsewhere, WHS’s principal source of funding is the limited government funding.

An often-understated consideration is that the learners are drawn from households with so low an educational attainment that they may not be relied upon to support with homework.

Often their success or failure is dependent entirely on the school.

WHS not only exceeded both the national and provincial pass rates of 87% and 85%, respectively, but also those of its better endowed neighbours in the opulent suburb of Walmer in DF Malherbe (95%) and Victoria Park (96%) high schools - both of which are former model C schools. This is despite WHS’s overcrowded classrooms. He did the unthinkable.

Dyani’s remarkable achievement is testimony to the importance of leadership in society.

Dyani’s visionary leadership of WHS has seen the institution making impressive strides. In 2022, the maths pass rate sat at 48%, 92% in 2023 and his parting shot in 2024 was 100%.

Thanks to the young maths teacher, Mr Mthathi, whose dedication sees him go beyond the call of duty, running extra classes early in the morning, after school and over weekends.

Dyani, we thank you for your exemplary leadership, we hope that your journey will inspire many more to follow your colourful achievements.