Not everyone has an auntie like Sibongile Moyo, who sold a cow so that her niece and adoptive daughter Silethelwe Nxumalo could enter university for a basic degree in metallurgy. But ‘Lethu” Nxumalo — who recently made her aunt proud by graduating with an award-winning University of Cape Town (UCT) doctorate in mechanical engineering — says there are other (non-mooing) options.
Scholarships, in other words. Lots of scholarships, particularly for bright young students with hard-to-find abilities in science, maths and engineering. But there is a hidden hiccup: the honours year, sometimes considered the overlooked ”middle child” in the family of academic degrees. At the same time, it’s the degree which requires the most work (and weekends). It combines the most stressful aspects of student life, such as course-work deadlines and exams, along with the professional demands of research and peer-reviewed publishing.
South African Women in Science and Engineering (Sawise) has identified the honours year as make-or-break time in the arduous, time-intensive process of acquiring the kind of skills and scholarship that a sophisticated economy demands. They offer two scholarships to encourage female varsity students to stay for an honours degree. It’s often a vulnerable stage in any student’s life, when family and financial pressures force them to withdraw from study and start earning, often to support their younger siblings.
‘The honours year is often the toughest year financially for most students, especially those from poorer backgrounds,” explained Éva Plagányi-Lloyd, a mathematics lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT), who chairs the Sawise scholarship committee.
This year, Sawise awarded two R10 000 bursaries. One went to Jen de Beyer, a biochemistry student at the University of Stellenbosch, and the other to Tsungai Jongwe, a microbiology student at UCT. Both were funded by the Element Six industrial diamond company in Springs, which has just hired Lethu Nxumalo and whose head, Serdar Ozbayraktar, has a keen interest in increasing the pool of talent in South Africa.
‘They are both very promising young scientists,” said Plagányi-Lloyd. ‘We hope they will both be role models who will encourage young women to stay in university after their first degree because it does pay off in the long run. It’s a good investment in their future.”
Jongwe is using the scholarship to decode some of the secrets of plants. ‘I’m so excited and grateful,” the 22-year-old said. ‘I’m glad I can continue with my postgraduate studies. I hope to learn a lot from this year.” Jongwe uses chemicals such as ethanol to detect bacteria in the cells of local plants. She’s hoping to examine the bacteria to see if they produce antibiotics, especially if they could fight drug-resistant tuberculosis.
The youngest in a large family, Jongwe said that, without the bursary, she would have had to beg her five sisters and one brother, or her retired parents, for financial assistance.
Jen de Beyer came from Herschel, a leading independent school in the Cape, but says the funding is nonetheless critical.
The other Sawise scholarship has been going since 2000, funded by an American donor who inherited mining money from South Africa through her Scottish parents and sent it back to do some good, starting with winners Vuyiswa Radebe at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Indira Pillay at the University of the Western Cape.
The results of using honours degrees to keep women students in the international research and discovery pipeline have been impressive. The further back the scholarship winners are tracked, the higher the degree. Last year’s winner was ex-Zimbabwean Katy Lannas, who used the money to conduct research in Kruger Park and is now doing a master’s degree in the environmental economics of wetlands. The 2004 winner was Melinda Griffiths, who went off to join a British biotechnology company and returned to do her PhD. The 2003 scholarship winner, Thokozile Lewanika, has already received her doctoral degree.
The 2002 winner, Ilda Ladeira, comes from Bellville in Cape Town’s northern suburbs, and is now doing her PhD in ‘virtual storytelling” in the computer science department at UCT while teaching at St Cyprian’s High School.
She identified a very specific bene-fit of the honours scholarship: ‘It helped me move closer to campus and be on campus a lot, which you really need in honours. It’s pretty much true in any faculty that honours is your most intensive year; you move from only doing coursework and exams to doing all that and learning to be a researcher. It’s like boot camp. It’s an extreme year for most people.”
Ladeira suggested that the support framework provided with the Sawise honours scholarship was also key. ‘You feel like a valued academic resource and that maybe you should pursue this to the fullest. I’m a woman, I’ve got these important skills, I should do something interesting with them.”
The Sawise/Element Six scholarship, now worth R11 000, is available for female students to study at honours (fourth year) level in chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering or metallurgy, at any South African university. The Angus/Sawise scholarship will be given to a sub-Saharan black woman graduate with 70% (or above grade average) in her field so she can continue studying in any branch of science or engineering. For more information, go to www.sawise.org.za