The Sunday Mail
Takudzwa Mamire, A Level
Corpus Christ High
THERE is pressure of expectation that comes with enrolling at a school that has a history of producing good results like Corpus Christ.
People around you tend to forget that there are two options for candidates who write examinations, that you either pass or fail, for them there is only one option that you will obviously pass.
This is the burden that I had to carry as I went through my Advanced Level education and during the examination.
I remember in February 2015 one of my former school mates, Faith Mukanhairi, scored 17 points at A Level.
Such a standard saw us being put under pressure by our teachers and it was the same thing at home.
They said if others can score 17 points at your school surely you have no excuse not to do the same or even better. And from that moment I knew I had a big task.
People think that having big academic dreams is not for pupils attending schools in the Ghetto.
They think it’s for those in boarding schools. They think, understandably so, that pupils attending school in the Ghetto are all about drug abuse.
My case was however different in that while at a Ghetto School, Corpus Christ High School is one of a kind where a strict discipline is demanded from every pupil before everything else.
Naturally everything else then falls into place.
With my personal target set and having received enough support from my school and having worked very hard in the two years of my Advanced Level, I sat for four subjects namely Mathematics, Accounting, Economics and Business Studies.
Just like every other candidate, I patiently waited for the results — anxiously even, then on January 18 I was shocked to get a call from our school administrator Mr Ruzvidzo who informed me that I had to prepare to go for a meeting with the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Professor Paul Mavima.
The reason, he said, I had made it into Zimbabwe’s 25 best performers out of over 40 000 candidates in the 2017 Advanced Level public examinations and thus the Minister was hosting a function for us.
It was probably the proudest moment of my life when he then told me that I had managed four straight As or 20 points.
I also want to congratulate the rest of my school mates who did well in the examination with special mention going to Tonderai Tawadini — 18 points, Varaidzo Chiweshe — 17 points, Joseph Pambiwa — 16 points, Ngaakudzwe Chifamba — 15 points and Johnstone Mutauri 14 points.
