Almost a doctor ... but not quite

For Andile Dube,* a fourth-year medical student, the end is in sight.

Two years from now he should graduate as a doctor from Stellenbosch University.

Except, that might not happen. He has no money to continue his studies.

His remarkable story offers insights into how talented students sometimes fall through the cracks because no one is paying attention.

When the young Andile graduated from a poor, rural high school in Bergville, his story made headlines around the country—and for good reason.

What township kid pleads with his school to take more subjects only to matriculate boasting nine distinctions with the added ability to play 11 musical instruments?

In the excitement of the moment, the promises of funding came from everywhere including the local municipality and other do-gooders.

Few of those offers materialised and even fewer stayed the course.

Mr Harvey was one of the few consistent funders but even he left for overseas for a while, leaving a gap in Andile’s funding.

The university added the usual merit bursary contribution but the costs of a year at medical stretches north of R140,000 a year.

Meanwhile, at home things start to deteriorate badly.

His father abandons the family.

His mother becomes heavily indebted and, he suspects, is blacklisted because they cannot raise the loans to support his study.

At the time he applied for NSFAS, the government’s generous funding scheme for students, he missed the cut-off for inclusion because his parents were earning reasonably well.

Now all of that has changed as the family fortunes dived.

As a result, everyone in the family now looks to Andile to support them.

He opens his laptop and shows me a meticulously prepared monthly budget to support the family from the oddjobs he does while trying to study.

R1,000 to his poor grandparents who raised him and are desperately ill in the rural areas.

R1,200 for his sister who started studying at Wits; he is deeply concerned that the much older man she is dating might have nothing to do with romance. It is really hard to see the pain in his face as he tells her story.

R250 for his washing. R60 to eat for the day. R850 for transport to university. He had to delete the small amount set aside for gym.

Andile’s dean found some more money but it is not enough and it largely worked to cover his debt from 2019.

Andile actually gave up studies deciding to rather stay with the family in Bergville and find some work—this after successfully passing every course in his first three years of medical study so far.

The dean persuaded him to come back for one simple reason — if he would simply hang in there for another two years, he would become a qualified doctor and everything would change in his family, in his community (where he plans to work) and, without doubt, for the health of the country.

Eking out a dire existence from one day to the next, it would be completely understandable if this brilliant young medical student simply concentrated on his personal survival.

Not Andile. Between odd jobs and dissections, the remarkable Andile leads the Tygerberg Tutoring Society — a support network for high school students and health science students using peer-topeer interactions and highquality video tutorials.

The five-page project description of TTS is one of the most sophisticated student-initiated documents I have seen.

This man is not only talented; he is deeply devoted to improving the lives of others.

Universities are good at dishing out degrees but less competent in preparing young people with a strong sense of values such as compassion, commitment, courage and consistency.

Those broader values that come with the degree is what differentiates education from mere schooling.

Given a chance, Andile will graduate not merely with the MBChB (the medical qualification) but with a well-rounded education.

I pleaded with Andile not to go back home despite the great hardships engulfing the family and the toll all of this has taken on him.

But that kind of appeal rings hollow when the struggles of the student are so real.

So I decided to do something about this and appeal to potential funders to keep this doctor-in-the-making at university to complete his medical degree.

Would you please consider contributing directly into his account at Stellenbosch University?

Should you wish to make that difference, here are the account details:

Bank: Standard Bank Account Name: US Deposito Rekening

Branch: Stellenbosch Branch code: 050610 Account Number: 073006955 Reference (student number): JJ20141645

In the excitement of the moment, the promises of funding came from everywhere ... Few of those offers materialised