Department snubs whiz

WHILE Rylene Kisten is fighting to gain official recognition as one of last year’s top 10 matrics in KwaZulu-Natal, her classmate Delano Ramdas is upset over the provincial education department’s failure to invite him to the awards ceremony — despite being placed seventh.

Delano, a first-year mechatronic engineering student at the University of Cape Town, has still not received an apology from the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department for its blunder.

He said fellow pupils Thesan Appalsamy and Tejal Premjeeth, who also placed in the top 10, received phone calls a day before, inviting them to the event. “I was not contacted and my principal was not informed about my ranking.”

He said that, after the event, his friend Thesan told him his name had been announced and he had been placed seventh.

Delano and his parents rushed to the International Convention Centre but the function was over and most of the guests had already left.

“We found some of the officials who were in charge of signing off the prizes to awardees and sure enough there was a certificate and a laptop with a few other prizes for me.

“I managed to retrieve them from a stock room where the extras had been kept, in the presence of my dad and some of the officials.

“It was quite disheartening to receive such minimal recognition.”

Delano said he and his family tried unsuccessfully for weeks to get an apology from the department.

“Up to this day, we have no formal recognition of my ranking from the department, aside from a certificate with my name on it.” —

Prega Govender