In June this year three top managers from ACTOM visited Balmoral College next door to the group’s head office site in Knights, Germiston, to encourage and motivate Grade 11 & 12 learners at the school about the importance of education for building a secure and fulfilling career.
The three top managers were Andries Mthethwa, ACTOM’s Chairman, Mervyn Naidoo, Group CEO, and Sylvester Makamu, Group HR Executive, who each addressed the learners, including tracing their own career paths as examples of what may be achieved by learners who study with dedication and are ambitious, even though they may come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Balmoral College, one of the leading beneficiaries of ACTOM’s social responsibility programme, sets high standards of achievement for its learners and has an excellent track record for consistently achieving good results.
Sylvester said: “When I was at school I was often mocked for having my head in my books and for always wanting to study, but I knew that education was the only way I was going to improve the quality of my life and enable me to improve the lives of those around me.”
He added that many of his friends left school and started working straight away, while he continued to study.
“I have no regrets because today I am able to make the difference I dreamed of,” he commented.
Mervyn said he came from a poor family in KwaZulu-Natal and was raised by his grandmother because both his parents had to work seven days a week to make ends meet. His grandmother often spoke to him about the importance of an education although she herself was illiterate. Due to the hardships she had experienced she had a passion for him to be well-educated.
“I saw how people who were skilled or educated could rise up out of poverty and with my grandmother’s encouragement I was determined to do the same. Instead of having to cook food over an open fire as my grandmother did, I wanted some of the better things life has to offer, like a flushing toilet and warm, running water to bath in,” he said.
He had to make sacrifices along the way to achieve what he needed to. “I was a good soccer player, for example, but I realised that if I wanted to achieve the grades I needed to get a bursary to study, there was no time to play soccer, because without that bursary I would remain poor. So I chose to study to change my circumstances in the long term and achieve my goals,” Mervyn explained.
In his talk Andries emphasized that in addition to setting out to build their own careers, learners also have a responsibility to contribute towards South Africa’s success as a country.
Briefly tracing his own upbringing and education, he said his parents were farmworkers and he was the first of their eight children, so he and his siblings faced daunting obstacles to advancement. But he recalled that at a young age while walking past a factory in Alrode on his way to school he said to himself: “One day I will be the managing director of a factory”, so demonstrating that he had a strong ambition to get ahead despite his disadvantages. He described some of the challenges he faced, including the obstacles he had to overcome to study for an engineering degree during the apartheid era.
“What is holding you back from achieving your goals?” he asked the Balmoral College learners.
“You attend a school that achieves a 100% pass rate, you have teachers who are dedicated to preparing you for life. Remember, education also means preparing you to play meaningful roles in our society and in your families. You can achieve whatever you want to achieve through hard work and sacrifice,” he concluded.
