June 19, 2006, 11:00
Christina Scott
A Cape Town student's essay on global warming may take him from Langa to London next month for a worldwide student summit on climate change. Staff from South Africa's national annual festival of science, the week-long SciFest held every March in Grahamstown, have confirmed that Nyameko Qenqani's research and writing have put him on the shortlist. Qenqani is a matric student at the independent LEAP science and maths school which opened in 2004 in Pinelands.
The stocky teenager should know by the end of the week if he is one of three South African students flying their way to London's famous Natural History Museum for the four-day event in July. But what about reports that Home Affairs has run out of passports? "Nyameko already has a passport because part of his ambition is to travel," said John Gilmour, the LEAP principal. Nyameko comes from a very poor family split between Gugulethu and Langa, where he was studying matric last year at standard grade, which offers no hope of going to university.
His life changed when he joined the 300 or so students who attend Saturday morning lessons at LEAP. Although Nyameko is now 19 going on twenty, which often puts off school administrators, his diligence and maturity impressed the staff and he was allowed to re-do his matric on higher grade at LEAP
this year.
"He's thriving. His marks are good and he's working extremely hard," reported Gilmour, who says his student is well on his way to a science or
engineering varsity degree. "He's very interested in current affairs and found writing this essay quite exciting. He read a lot of books, looked at the geography resource books, had discussions with teachers and also checked the internet."
The competition, run in conjunction with the South African office of the British Council, closes on Monday June 19 and winners are due to be announced by Anja Fourie, manager of SciFest, on Wednesday June 21.
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