Fundiswa Mdashe's Profile

 

By Naledi Mdashe

Fundiswa Florence Mdashe the second child out of two kids, she was raised in the rural area, where she lived with her grand-parents, aunts, uncles and many cousins. She was the youngest in her home and was the first one to ever go to University in her family. She describes her motive to go to university as “breaking the financial generational curse”, she says that she wanted more for her family and that she saw potential in her eldest cousins, to go further their education, but still not one of them went to university but her. She is an experienced teacher, who has been teaching for over 30 years. She has taught different generations at a very young age, she started teaching when she was only 23 years old. One thing she wished for was to hear her mom say “she was proud of her” she went and graduated university but fortunately that did not happen because both her parents passed away when she was still in High School and her grand-mother followed before she even graduated.

She became a mother at the age of 29 and five years later she became a mother of two. In 2014 she became a grandmother, which made her work even harder because of her daughter who became a mother at the age of 17 years old.

Home Town: Fundiswa Mdashe was born on the 6th of April 1968 at Keiskammahoek in the Eastern Cape. She was raised in a village called eMnyameni in Qoboqobo Eastern Cape. She was raised by her maternal grandmother, while her mom was working in Cape Town as a domestic worker.

Education: She attended Dumani Primary school in Mnyameni during the years 1974 till 1980. She then attended Ulana high school as her secondary education which is located in upper Gxulu, from 1981 till 1986. When it was time for her to go to tertiary, she enrolled into Cape College of Education in Fort Beaufort. She studied secondary teacher’s diploma (STD), which she completed in 1990. In 2006 she enrolled into (CPUT) Cape Peninsula University of Technology, where she studied Advanced Certificate in Education, also known as the (ACE). Her Major courses were Mathematical Literacy, Research, Education, and English. She completed the course in the following year which was 2007. In 2009 she enrolled into the University of Western Cape also known as (UWC), where she did Mathematics, Computer studies, Metatheory Pedagogics and research. She graduated in B.Ed honours in 2010, that was her last year of studying.

Work Experience: She started working in 1991 as a teacher at Nduli intermediate Primary School in Ceres, Western Cape. She educated grade 3 learners. In March 1995 she resigned and immediately moved to Cape Town. In April 1995 she became a High School educator at Sithembele Matiso Secondary, where she taught grade 8,9 and 10. In grade 8 and 9 she instructed natural science which was known as general science then, she also taught IsiXhosa in grade 10. The next year, she began teaching grade 11, where she taught biological science. After many years of teaching grade 9,10 and 11, she was given an opportunity to become a Life Science grade 12 teacher for only 3 months, as she was filling a gap for a grade 12 educator who was on leave, that was 2012. It is obvious that she was good at teaching Life Science, because the principal of her school was interested in her teaching Life Science in grade 12. The following year 2013, she began teaching Life Science in grade 12. Before the year 2013, Sithembele Matiso’s matric results for Life Science used to be below 40% and after 2013 it was above 50% for the final year. This means Ms Mdashe boosted the pass rate of the school, each year the school’s pass rate would be higher by 1 to 5% yearly. Being a grade 12 teacher gave her a chance to gain income in the beginning of the year, from marking grade 12’s Life Science paper in December. According to Fundiswa, her passion for teaching rose when she started teaching grade 12, because she saw how much impact she had in teaching matric. She even won teacher of the year in 2015, when Life Science rated number one out of all subjects at her school that year. After her achievement in 2015, she volunteered to become a Life Science tutor for her school, she did that for six months and the principal of her school saw progress and gave her a job as a tutor during weekends. In 2017 she became a tutor for Sinethemba High and Oscar Mpethe High, including her school, Sithembele Matiso. She did that for 2 years and claims that she got tired of working too many jobs at once, though it seemed to not require much but it was a lot for her.