Amahle Jemane was awarded the title of second best in South African Sign Language following the release of the 2023 matric exams.
Jemane, now residing in Gauteng, was a student at the De La Bat School for deaf and hard of hearing. According to her, this achievement has provided her with an immeasurable amount of happiness.
“I don’t know how to describe my emotional state of happiness. It is such a blessing to achieve the second best South African Sign Language. I am so beyond and super proud of myself after working so hard throughout the year to get where I’m today.”
It has been a goal of hers to be one of the top students.
“It was my goal to be one of top students, but I really never thought that I would make it because of how I doubted myself, but I made it!”
When she first found out that she was one of the top learners she thought she was dreaming.
“At first I thought it was a dream, but no it was reality. I jumped and screamed a lot with a joyful soul. Thankfully my family are deaf so they didn’t hear my scream,” she explains.
Jemane made a lot of sacrifices while studying for her final exams.
“It was so overwhelming to study and write the exams. I had to spend less time with my friends and also couldn’t do sports until I finished my exams
Her goal now is to become a teacher.
“I want to study Deaf education and become a teacher so that I can do research and provide better resources to deaf children in deaf school.
“I want be an activist for deaf education in school to better education system in deaf schools. Also want to research and explore the deaf community‘s background and cultures and how it differs from hearing people, because many hearing people are not aware of deaf people’s culture.”
