Thabang Isaac began his academic journey on a high note; he was a brilliant student and was very obedient to his parents and as such he constantly did exceptionally well. When he got to standard 5 it all changed as he became playful and as a result his marks dropped from an A to a B, which later became his final PSLE grade. The higher Thabang went the worse things got; by the time he got to Form 2 he had already become one of the ‘cool guys’ in his school and his focus was on social media, partying and dating much more than his academics. Thabang would hardly concentrate in class and only resolved to noise making and taking on topics that were not at all related to the school curriculum. This led to his grades dropping drastically, and as a result he progressed to senior school with a low grade B. In form 4, Thabang’s character worsened; he started dating many girls at once, watching pornographic material, masturbating and stealing, setting his studies aside. As a result, the highest grade he would get was 36 points.
Fortunately in May 2016 he was invited to a PPS meeting with Prophet Cedric and the message he received hit the core of his heart. Thabang was inspired to change his character as he now knew that the path he had chosen was only leading him to destruction. Through the message, he got to understand that being obedient to the instruction of the Prophet; to divert his attention from where it has always been to his academics was the only sure way to blessing. Therefore he detached from the group he used to move around with, deactivated his social media accounts and stopped partying and stealing. He reposed and focused on his academics; he would wake up to study in the night as per the instruction of the man of God and worked as if his success depended entirely on him. In no time there was a notable change in Thabang’s academics as he received prizes for being the best student in Computer Science and he also went for a Public Speaking competition where he managed to scoop second place.
When the time to sit for his BGSCE came, Thabang was all set, he prayed with the Living Water believing God to see him through and indeed the grace of God spoke for him as he managed to scoop 41 points; something that had been a far-fetched dream for him. In conclusion Thabang had this to say, “I encourage students to divert their attention to their academics and to up their spirits because they can never stand out if they don’t stand up.”
