Inkamana Abbey school’s secret of success

Every year, a rural abbey school in KwaZulu-Natal outperforms many private elite academies in the national matric results rankings. Daluxolo Moloantoa looks at Inkamana High School.

Pope St John Paul II once said: “Remember the past with gratitude. Live in the present with enthusiasm, and be open to the future with confidence.” His message could have been directed at a historic Catholic mission school nestled in the heart of the Zulu kingdom.

Inkamana High School, in the rural town of Vryheid in northern KwaZulu-Natal, was founded by the German Benedictines of Inkamana Abbey in 1923 as an intermediate school, with only 15 students and only one class (Grade 5).

All boarders, the pupils paid sixpence a month for school fees and brought farm and garden produce to pay for their boarding accommodation. These pioneering missionaries and students planted the seeds and cultivated a foundation of educational excellence for a hundred years and up to this day.

Inkamana’s Class of 2023 recorded a 100% matric pass rate. Remarkably, it is a feat the school has achieved every year since 1969, except in 2019.

In 2017 Inkamana High was the second-best performing high school in South Africa, and in 2018 the fourth-best. From 2020-22 it made the national Top 5 of best-performing schools, outperforming many much better funded elite academies.

In comparison to most private schools in South Africa, the fees for attending Inkamana High are modest.

Inkamana High School has around 200 learners, with one class for each grade.

“We require of the parents to submit a baptism certificate when applying for a space. This means that the children’s background and upbringing must be guided by Christian principles,” Inkamana High principal Irmhild Fourie told The Southern Cross. “We also have 100% boarding. All learners stay in the school hostel. This means they practise a daily routine throughout their time with us.”

Mrs Fourie has been a member of the teaching staff at the school since 2006, and was appointed principal in 2020. She succeeded another long-time staff member, Isabel Steenkamp, who retired in 2020 after a service of 38 years with the school, 22 of them as its head.

Royal connections

A testimony to Inkamana’s long history of educational excellence is demonstrated in its past students. Its list of alumni reads like a “Who’s Who” of black South African society. Among them are former deputy-president Dr Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, former First Lady Zanele Mbeki, veteran minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, slain political activist couple Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro, former SA National Parks CEO Mavuso Msimang, acclaimed poet Oswald Mtshali, actor and TV presenter Buyile Mdladla, Catholic chorister and gospel music singer Thulasizwe Guqu Ndlovu, and many other illustrious personalities.

Several members of the Zulu royal family also studied at the school. It is an association which is rooted in the royal family’s long connection with the Benedictine missionaries.

It goes back to Queen Nolonolo, wife of King Bhekuzulu kaSolomon and grandmother of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini, who trained and worked as a nurse at the Benedictine Nongoma Hospital in the 1950s. King Goodwill was born in 1948 at the hospital, as were most of the children of the late politician Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

Among the royal family members who attended school at Inkamana High are Princess Thembi Zulu-Ndlovu, the sister of the late king, and Prince Gideon Zulu, a former KwaZulu Natal social welfare and pensions MEC.

Listen, pray and work

As a Benedictine community, the school strives to live out its St Benedict-inspired mottos: “Ausculta” (To listen, with the ear of the heart) and “Ora et Labora” (To pray and work).

“The students are regularly reminded of the Benedictine values, which are strongly anchored in community living and the dignity of work,” Mrs Fourie explained.

“Our day starts with scripture readings, the singing of hymns, and prayer. We attend Mass on Sundays and Thursday morning as well as Sunday evening vespers. This adds to a positive peer pressure and enhances a communal spirit of each one caring for the other in our community.”

Apart from the spiritual and academic undertakings, the school also puts an emphasis on sports and other extracurricular activities. “Weekday afternoons are dedicated to sports and cultural activities. We have sports such as athletics, soccer, tennis, rugby and netball. We also have drama, choir, public speaking, chess, as well as a marimba band and drumming,” Mrs Fourie said.

In 2018 the school’s alumni association founded the Inkamana Athletics Club. The club was started to anticipate the 2021 centenary of Inkamana Abbey and the Benedictine missionaries’ presence in Zululand.

Members of the Inkamana Alumni Association periodically visit the school to encourage and motivate learners to reach for great heights after their school years.

The association has a formalised entity called the Inkamana Alumni at Wits Association. It is an association of alumni who attend Wits University in Johannesburg. Among its activities are sports events, picnic days and gala dinners, all held to raise funds for their alma mater.

“Looking forward, we are hoping to offer more subjects to increase the number of learners at the school without compromising the quality of education. We try very hard to ensure that the learners make correct subject choices to get the best academic achievements,” Mrs Fourie said.

“At Grade 10, our learners already know what they want to be in the future — and we focus on helping them achieve this.”

Published in the March 2024 issue of The Southern Cross magazine