Excellence in Secondary School Teaching 1st runner-up: Mpho Augustinah Mokoena

Sakhisizwe Secondary School, KZN

Mpho Mokoena says teaching never featured on her bucket list of career choices. After she completed her Bcom degree, Mokoena struggled to find a job and she decided to apply for a PGCE. Upon entering the profession she soon realised that teaching was her calling.

Mokoena says the NTAS have taken her career to another level. Not only is she the envy of her peers, but principals of neighbouring schools try to lure her to their schools. She feels the awards are her personal positive reinforcement and have equipped and motivated her to work even harder.

Mokoena says she likes the bond she has created with her learners: “Seeing them being educated and financially independent is what makes me wake up every day with a feeling of contentment, and this strengthens my passion for the profession.”

Mokoena uses different strategies to energise her learners during lessons. Firstly, she makes use of excursions and links them to specific challenging chapters in real-life situations. Secondly, she makes use of the “preach and practice” approach, where her learners take what they learned in class and apply it in the outside world. Thirdly, she always involves them in different business, commerce and management competitions such as financial literacy speeches, the South African Reserve Bank challenge and the National High School Olympiads for Business Studies and Economics.

Mokoena’s school is based in a deep rural area in Msinga, Kwazulu-natal, and this presents a number of challenges, such as poor infrastructure, lack of water and electricity, poverty, child-headed families and a high crime rate. To deal with these challenges, Mokoena tries to have one-on-one sessions with the learners and the parents to get a better understanding of their situations and how she can help them.