Thank you Programme Director,
The Circuit Manager, Educators, SGB,
Parents present, distinguish guests and the very reason for our presence here today - the grade 12 learners of the class of 2011.
The matric pass rate for 2011 in the province saw an increase from 56.8% to 64.8 % showing the largest improvement with an increase of eight percent from 2010, this is indeed praiseworthy. “To be a finalist and a winner of awards is special and it truly makes a difference to be acknowledged for all the hard work”.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a great sense of pride that I can address our top learners from the White Hazy Circuit who were in schools which are above all a community, where individuals are nurtured and understood as individuals with individual circumstances, where they foster the sense of a common identity and good working relationships, this has proven to be schools to produce commendable and quality results.
I know it's been a tough year and journey but I'm proud of what we accomplished together as government, learners, parents, educators, the SGB and all interested parties in ensuring that our young people receive quality education. Without the involvement of various stakeholders in ensuring that our learners produce good results can never be overlooked.
As we gathered here today to confer the awards for good performance, I am being reminded that as young people you have your own choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the remedy to lack of interest and pessimism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes. Learn what you can and move on. At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble. As you have made it to the next level, you need to make correct choices in your endeavours.
As top achievers in your results you need to also convey a word of thanks to your educators and the role-players who were ensuring that you produce good results. One of the few graduation speakers who will never be forgotten, Nelson Mandela, put it this way:
"Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You’re playing small doesn't serve the world."
Let's just take a moment to hope that Nelson Mandela and Adam Sandler never again share a paragraph.
Ladies and gentlemen, with our government providing various opportunities for young people, I encourage you to grab all those opportunities with both hands, make sure you achieve something out of it.
One of the advices I would like to share with you is persistence, I know to some it might sound weird, but with persistence you won’t be afraid to embrace the opportunities that are in front of you. You have a deep well of talent on the inside of you, but the only way to get that talent up and out of you is through persistence. You must be determined. You've got to learn not to embrace the obstacles but embrace the opportunities.
When you wake up each day, make a conscious decision to have a positive attitude towards everything that comes your way. A positive mindset can move mountains. The dynamic difference between a motivated person and an unmotivated person can be as much as 60%! Bring out those talents we don’t even know you have, give us a greater opportunity to be of service.
But our untapped talent and potential will lie dormant for a lifetime unless we're willing to get busy where we are right now, at your tertiary institutions of your choice. Don’t just sit around waiting for the big opportunity, dreaming about all the wonderful things you need to invest your talents wisely right now.
“If you have a desire to sing, join the choir. Don't sit around and wait for a major recording company to sign you up to some big deal”.
Learners, if you wish to remain a successful person in life, output can never be left to chance. You need to plan each of your days. Make a list of goals that need to be achieved each day, and tick them off as you complete them. This will ensure you have a mission, and that you remain focused on completing today’s goals. Don’t allow yourself to be side-tracked into doing less important things.
As young people you should know that your gifts and talents will make room for you. That means if you'll stick with it, be persistent, and continue to use what has been given to you, those gifts will cause you to move forward and help you to make progress in your life. You will rise to the top.
Once more ladies and gentlemen, for young people if they want to see democracy as young people, you should know that you don't just get democracy - you have to make it happen. I urge you to extend that call to action to every aspect of your lives. We need a bunch of young people invading our job market.
It's not how much you have, but it's how you use what you have that matters. Are you making the most of the gifts and talents you have? It doesn't matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping. So get out there and go for it, but don't be caught waiting. It's great to plan for your future. Just don't live there, because really nothing ever happens in the future. Whatever happens, happens now, so live your life where the action is - now. Everything you have acquired of value is locked inside you. If you have a dream, now is the time to pursue it, before you go for whatever you desire.
I was one of the lucky ones. I graduated from a college with no employable skills, it meant I had to start from scratch and figure out where I fit in. But at the end I found out what I was good at. I found something I loved and now I am a Politician. Therefore, if you're going to fail, fail big. If you don't, you're never going to make a difference. Originality is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art knows which ones to keep.
As I conclude, I would like you to think of the world as a big glass of water with some salt in it. You have a choice. You can try to pick out all the salt or you can keep pouring in more water so eventually it gets less bitter. As you begin your new journey, you can try to remove everything that you find distasteful in the world, or you can just pour in more love. It's the only thing that the more you give away, the more you have.
I will leave you with something I have learned from my only other area of expertise, “life is too challenging for external rewards to sustain us. The joy is in the journey. You've got to want to do whatever you want to do more than you want to be whatever you want to be, want to write more than you want to be a writer, want to heal more than you want to be a doctor, want to teach more than you want to be a teacher, want to serve more than you want to be a politician. Fall in love with the process and the results will follow”.
You've all spent the majority of your lives in school, where your work was assigned to you and you're supposed to please your teachers. The pressure is now to get into wonderful tertiary institutions where you’ll acquire more skills. You are all so much more than that.
You've reached the wonderful and terrifying moment where you must be your own guide. Listen to the whispers inside you. We have a lot of problems in this country and we're going to need you to think outside the box.
Congratulations, class of 2011!!!
