Transitioning from high school to university can be challenging without solid support. For the past 20 years, JuniorTukkie has smoothed the way for thousands of Grades 9 to 12 school learners across South Africa, many of whom have since graduated, with qualifications ranging from undergraduate degrees to PhDs.

“Our key focus is not to have people study at the University of Pretoria – it is to have people graduate,” said Wallace Isaacs, Deputy Director of Enrolment and Student Administration, during JuniorTukkie’s 20^th birthday celebration, which was held on 5 September at UP’s Future Africa Institute.

While some JuniorTukkie participants go on to study at other universities, those who join UP do extremely well. Over the past 20 years, 7 893 JuniorTukkie members have graduated with bachelor degrees from UP; 2 496 have completed honours degrees; 525 have obtained master’s degrees; and 25 have secured PhDs.

An additional 2101 JuniorTukkie students are pursuing their studies at UP, including 92 doctoral candidates.

HAPPY 20^TH BIRTHDAY, JUNIORTUKKIE!

Helping high school learners reach for the stars

During his address, Issacs touched on significant moments in JuniorTukkie’s 20-year history, and singled out its inception in 2004, when two students attended the International Space Station programme in the US. Since then, JuniorTukkie has supported thousands of learners to “reach for the stars”.

The programme itself “experienced stellar growth beyond the initial vision of providing bespoke information, motivation and hopefully a bit of excitement around tertiary education”, Issacs said.

Today, JuniorTukkie’s initiatives include the annual Winter School for Grade 12 learners, Summer School and Empowerment Week for Grade 11s, matric exam preparation for Grade 12s, information sessions for Grade 9 learners and their parents, and the Grade 11 Achievers Function.

Not content with that, in 2021, with the support of partners such as Investec and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), JuniorTukkie launched its e-learning platform (juniortukkie.online) – which is free to all learners in South Africa. To date, 17 500 learners in Grades 8 to 12 have benefitted from the platform.

Most recently, in March 2024, JuniorTukkie expanded its offerings by introducing a resource library for teachers on juniortukkie.online.

Friends and family for life

The 20^th birthday celebration also featured testimonials from JuniorTukkie participants and alumni.

“The programme has helped me become a better leader,” said Mpiloenhle Radebe, chairperson of the JuniorTukkie Student Ambassadors Society. “I used to be so afraid of leadership positions and projected this onto others; I would not let them make a mistake. I have learnt that people are not robots. People have feelings.

“I have also learnt that leadership sometimes means leading from the back. You don’t always have to be in the front. You can empower people to do things out there and be their pillar of strength at the back.”

Trevor van Wyk, a JuniorTukkie alumnus, told guests that he had joined the JuniorTukkie programme in 2017 as a first-year student and is now in the second year of his PhD studies.

He started out at JuniorTukkie packing boxes of ‘lucky packets’ for learner open days, but was soon given more responsibility, such as speaking at those open days. In his third year, Van Wyk became part of the JuniorTukkie Student Ambassadors Society and JuniorTukkie fundraising committee, which included attempting to secure donations from students. While this was ‘an impossible challenge’, he succeeded, thanks to the support of the JuniorTukkie team.

“There are no better friends and family that you would find than when you are in the trenches,” Van Wyk said. “These are people I will never forget. There’s nothing I cannot accomplish, because I know there are people who believe in me.”

Why longstanding partners stand by JuniorTukkie

Top corporates Investec and NTT (formerly Dimension Data) have been supporting JuniorTukkie for as long as 15 years, with UNICEF joining more recently.

“When we were approached 15 years ago, the question we asked was, ‘How is this going to make a difference?’” said Setlogane Manchidi, Head of Corporate Social Investment at Investec in South Africa. “The active economic inclusion of many people in this country, or the desire to include them economically, is what makes this programme relevant. At the heart of this programme is the fact that it has been designed to make a difference.”

Hana Yoshimoto, Chief of Education of UNICEF in South Africa, said young people were greatly in need of information and guidance.

“More so now, because the world of work is shifting so fast,” she said, congratulating the University on the 20-year track record of JuniorTukkie.

Shakes Makgalemane, Head of NTT’s Saturday Schools programme, agreed that JuniorTukkie is a programme with impact. Speaking on the sidelines of the celebration, he said many of the learners in the JuniorTukkie programme were from township schools.

“About 90% of those kids graduate. Those kids would probably never have had the opportunity to go to university.”

Once the JuniorTukkie birthday cake had been cut and the candles blown out, Sandisiwe Williams, Senior Assistant Director of Institutional Recruitment, had this to say about JuniorTukkie: “We are in the business of making dreams a reality.”