Winners of the Stella Clark Teachers' Award, 2014

Mrs Charline Little, Vuyisani Bisholo, Tozama Nkunkuma, Helena Le Grange, Lia Jacobs, Mrs Amina Nordien and Professor Kevin Naidoo

Charline Little, an English teacher at Maitland High School, and Amina Nordien, a drama teacher at Alexander Sinton High School in Athlone, are the joint winners of 2014 Stella Clark Teachers’ Award. The 2014 winners have an outstanding record of achievements, often accomplished under difficult circumstances.

Mrs Little, a dedicated teacher for over 24 years, was nominated by Vuyisani Bisholo, a first-year Construction Economics student. In his motivation Mr Bisholo said: “Mrs Little’s task is made harder by the fact that she teaches English (as a) home language to students for whom it is a second language. I witnessed her love for English and her yearning to impart her knowledge to her students”. Encouraged by Mrs Little to “read whatever you can lay your hands on, be it a newspaper or a magazine of interest”, Mr Bisholo says he applied this lesson to other subjects. “This helped me broaden my horizons in learning and pushed me into loving engaging with text in a way I had never been able to before; I guess that was a contributing factor to my coming to UCT.”

In her motivation, Lia Jacobs, a first-year BA student said Ms Nordien was a teacher who went the extra mile to help struggling learners. “She challenged and inspired her students and inducted them into drama through exposure to live theatre performances and by starting her own theatre at the school,” says Ms Jacobs. “Thanks to Ms Nordien’s guidance, I had increased confidence, not only on stage during performance but in my personal life as well. I valued myself more and doing Drama also helped me to mature and grow in compassion for people around me.”