From poverty and pool cleaner to a PHD

MERWYN Coetzee, who graduated yesterday with a PhD in Education: Language and Literacy, will be having a celebration to mark the occasion. But the focus will not be on his impressive achievement.

Instead, he says it will be a “celebration of the Coetzee family and their resilience”, as well as all those who opened the door to higher learning by saying “yes” to a young man from Bonteheuwel with a dream to do more with his life. It will be his chance to thank them for the sacrifice and support that enabled him to progress from being a pool cleaner to obtaining a PhD.

Guest of honour will be Mervyn's mother, Joan Coetzee, who raised him and his five siblings alone in the gangster-ridden Bonteheuwel after their father died in 1974. Mervyn was only eight years old at the time. The family lived in poverty and, to bring in some extra money, Coetzee worked as a casual cleaner at the Sea Point Pavilion.

Coetzee recalls standing outside the local fish shop in the hope of being given a few “kaiings” (clumps of batter) at the end of the day, which he would share with the family as supper. If they were lucky, there would be a few pieces of fish attached.

He admits that he was not a brilliant student “by any means”. Notwithstanding his challenging circumstances, Coetzee also had to deal with his own differences. Born with two thumbs on each hand, he had to endure teasing from his peers. Coetzee says it was the humiliation he felt because of his appearance that helped him understand the insecurities and fears of his students, and that would later form the premise of his thesis on trauma in learning and teaching.

When Coetzee failed his mid-year exams in Grade 10, he wanted to drop out of school. But his older brother intervened, saying that one of the family had to complete matric. He managed to complete school in 1984.

While still working shifts at the pool, he was encouraged to become a beach constable. Although the job kept him fit, he found it difficult to patrol a beach that he could not enjoy because of apartheid laws. Additionally, there was also a pervading sense that there had to be more to his life, he says.

Four years later, a girlfriend encouraged him to apply to study at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

“This is where the story changed,” he says. A chance encounter with a peer facilitator, Neil van den Heever from Namaqualand, created an opportunity for further education at UWC.

But first, Coetzee had to secure the funding he needed to register.

After several unsuccessful attempts to get financial support, Coetzee decided to approach the Department of Education. A serendipitous meeting with an inspector there who encouraged him to “go do something with your life” set Coetzee on the path to registering for a degree and he completed a BA in English and Philosophy.

The fact that someone had taken a chance on him, saying yes instead of referring him to another department or person, was life-changing, he says.

He is currently working as the Academic Review Specialist in UWC's Academic Planning Unit. He took a job as a tutor at UWC's English for Educational Development unit where he first encountered what would become the crux of his seminal PhD research – students' reticence to speak aloud in class.

Coetzee's thesis is titled Trauma, Injustice and Identity: Investigating an Egalitarian and Autoethnographic Approach to Analysing Students’ Personal Language Narratives. One of his external examiners noted that, “The study is ground-breaking as it pays specific attention to students' trauma, which is a very common experience of first-year students with English as their second and third language… I, therefore, recommend that this thesis be de-constructed and published as a book to get a bigger readership.”

Coetzee remains ever-mindful of the doors that opened up for him throughout his journey from cleaner to PhD graduate. Coetzee would, therefore, like to inspire others to also overcome their insecurities and personal challenges to fulfil their dreams.

“I want to go on and share with the world the power of saying yes.”