By HARRIET CHIKANDIWA
TAIDA Mapara, a 14-year-old student from a Harare-based private college, Hilbright Science College, has enrolled for medical studies at the Malawi Medical School after scoring 15 points in the June 2020 Cambridge A-Level examinations, NewsDay has learnt.
She joins another local whizkid, Maud Chifamba from Chegutu, who enrolled at the University of Zimbabwe at the age of 14 and has since graduated with an accounting degree.
Mapara sat for three science subjects — Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry — after a nine-month intensive study and passed with flying colours.
“From Grade 2 to 6, I attended Maranatha Junior School. In 2016, March, I moved to Ghana, where I was home-schooled until August 2016,” she said.
“Home-schooling was not challenging enough for me, so I asked to be enrolled in a regular school set-up, which my parents gladly accepted.”
“I did exceptionally well in my primary Cambridge checkpoint examinations meaning that instead of moving to Form 1, I skipped to Form 2.”
“In 2019 May/June, I wrote my IGCSE exams and passed with 4 A+, 5As and one B.
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“We relocated to Zimbabwe in August 2019 and I struggled to find a school I could enrol with for A-Level since most schools had already begun the syllabus.
“I eventually got a place at Hilbright Science College end of September 2019 just to while up time while waiting for a boarding school to accept me for A-Level,” she said.
Mapara said her teachers and family were very supportive and motivating to the extent that she ended up registering to write the GCE-Advance Level May/June 2020 examinations and managed to study the two-year GCE Advanced-Level course in a period of nine months and scored 15 points.
“I was also fortunate to have very supportive teachers who understood my potential and were always willing to put in extra effort to see me achieve.”
Mapara said she was happy to be enrolled at a medical school at such a tender age.
