A Little Grace Goes a Long Way for Matric Learners This Exam Season

Photo Credit: Yumna Alex via Facebook

As matric learners face the pressure of exams and expectations, one mother’s chance encounter with a crying learner became a gentle reminder that sometimes the greatest support we can offer is grace, reassurance and the promise that they don’t have to carry it all alone.

Cape Town, South Africa (12 June 2026) – June carries a lot of significance for various reasons. For matric learners, it also brings academic pressure and the heavy weight of expectation to do well in the mid-year examinations.

It is a stressful time for most young people, and without realising it, our hope that they do well can sometimes translate into added pressure rather than meaningful support.

It was a realisation that hit Yumna Alex recently while she was driving away from her mother’s house and saw a young learner walking and crying in the neighbourhood.

“I noticed her jacket that she’s in matric. I stopped, called her and made her get into my car; she could hardly speak. She was on her way to write her paper,” Yumna shares in a Facebook post.

In trying to find out what was wrong, Yumna learned that the learner had been experiencing a very tough year and felt that her mother didn’t understand. It was a revelation that forced Yumna to pause and wonder whether she had ever made her own daughter feel that way.

“Parents, I think we are maybe putting pressure on our kids for results, and we are putting way too little into adding ease to the outcome. Sometimes, without being aware,” Yumna continues.

As a mother and the founder of 11 night schools, where she sees firsthand what adult matriculants experience, she understands in theory the importance of not putting pressure on an anxious young person to obtain seven distinctions or a Bachelor’s pass.

“I have never seen young kids be so stressed out because of what seems like nothing to us means everything to them.”

Yumna used the moment of realisation to remind other parents to extend a little grace and stand by their children as they navigate the academic rollercoaster of the matric year.