Dr Di Ayliff
English Olympiad National Academic Co-ordinator
This year the South African Council of English Education (SACEE) celebrates its Jubilee year. It was started in 1955 when a small group of English speakers banded together to maintain their English heritage that they saw to be under threat from the apartheid government of the day. Over the years the organisation has changed considerably, but the present members still work very hard at supporting the teaching, learning and appreciation of English through its many projects.
The De Beers English Olympiad is one of these projects and it is a great pleasure for me to come to Grahamstown each year for the Schools Festival to announce the top twenty winners of this prestigious nation-wide competition. Although there is a rank order of the top one hundred candidates and huge prizes and bursaries for them, the Olympiad is more about participation and enrichment of all. What is looked for in the Olympiad is a critical, intelligent, individual response to the given works. It is not an examination where candidates can regurgitate notes or facts. In this last Olympiad the candidates were required to explore the theme of war in an anthology put together by Mr Andrew Renard, the chief examiner. Over 4000 candidates from across southern Africa read and responded to these works and are no doubt the richer for doing so.
The English Olympiad and the Schools Festival in Grahamstown provide a wonderful opportunity for young people to learn through interaction with their peers, and so to develop their own individual opinions. They take responsibility for their thoughts and their lives. The enrichment of literature, the theatre and the arts and the opportunities afforded by the Schools Festival allow our school pupils to explore a cultural world beyond the sometimes narrow confines of the school curriculum.
On behalf of SACEE we extend our grateful thanks to the Grahamstown Foundation, which provides the administrative support, and De Beers which underwrites this vital cultural venture.
The Grahamstown Foundation and SACEE warmly thank the sponsors for their generous support. Without them this Olympiad would not be possible:
We also wish to thank the following sponsors of cash prizes for the top twenty candidates in the English Olympiad: