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24 November 2023 | Story Jóhann Thormählen | Photo Rooistoel
Sikholiwe (Sne) Mdletshe
The former Kovsie captain Sne Mdletshe still loves fitness and is nowadays a netball conditioning coach at the Sekondêre Meisieskool Oranje.

If she is not using her talent, she is wasting it.

This conviction is one the reasons why Sikholiwe (Sne) Mdletshe has been inspiring those around her at a young age.

She believes in using the talent you are gifted with. The former Protea has not only excelled on the netball court, but maximises her talents as an academic, conditioning coach, working professional, and lately a Springbok women’s sevens player.

And it was with the assistance of the University of the Free State (UFS) that Mdletshe (24) was able to develop holistically and strike a balance between her studies and sport.

The first-year audit trainee at Ernst & Young is an ambassador for the UFS Sporting Legends project, which celebrates current and former Kovsie sports stars by featuring their journeys in a video and story series.

The series looks at the impact the UFS has had on their careers, how it has uniquely shaped them, and helped them to excel – whether in sport or the world of work.

Proud Kovsie

She represented the UFS from 2017 to 2022, captained Kovsies in 2020 and 2021, and won Varsity Netball twice (2018 and 2021).

In 2019, Mdletshe was the UFS Junior Sportswoman of the Year, and in 2020 – at only 21 years old – she was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans.

The former Free State Crinums player is not only a role model on court, but also an academic example.

She was a candidate fellow in the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation from 2018 to 2021 and graduated to being an Allan Gray Fellow in 2022. Mdletshe obtained BCom Accounting, BCom Accounting Honours degrees, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Chartered Accountancy at the UFS.

“It’s special to be a Kovsie, because you are part of a family – at KovsieSport and just at Kovsies as a whole.

“Even outside of university, you still connect with the people you met at the UFS,” she says.

She is grateful for the support to pursue a sporting and academic career.

“I wrote about seven tests in a hotel conference room being invigilated by my coach.

“That was only possible because the UFS is interlinked, and the faculties understood that we are sports people within an accounting faculty.

“Studying is hard, but at KovsieSport they understood that I am an academic as well.”

Protea dress

She has also been a leader on court and captained the national under-19 and under-21 netball teams.

And in November 2020, she made her Protea debut against Malawi in Sun City.

The former Kovsie captain, who played two tests, says when you make your senior debut, you receive your Protea dress from the seniors about an hour before the clash.

“That is the first time you put it on, with your surname on the back and everything.”

“At that moment, I was like: Wow!”

“To stand there and sing that anthem in that dress, was amazing!”

Fitness fanatic

It was early in high school (Middelburg High School) when a pivotal moment took place.

She remembers one of the pastors saying: “If you have a talent, the talent is not yours, it is God’s.”

“I thought: ‘If I’m not using my talent, I’m wasting it’.”

This was also when fitness started to play a bigger role in her life. She says in high school her friends would think she was crazy, as she would go for a run on a Sunday afternoon when they just wanted to sleep.

“Fitness gave me a break. It gave me a space where I was allowed to be in my own world.”

Although she is not currently playing netball, Mdletshe still trains diligently before sunrise and work.

And she lives out her fitness passion as a netball conditioning coach at the Sekondêre Meisieskool Oranje.

Life after netball and Springbok rugby

Mdletshe says she is now focusing on life after netball and her goal is to be a chartered accountant.

She enjoys her work at Ernst & Young: “It is audit, it is accounting, and I love it. I feel like I am in the right place.”

In 2023, she started playing women’s rugby to do something social after work. Only a few months later, she was scoring hat tricks and helped the Free State win the national First Division.

The outside back says things escalated quickly, and soon she was starting for her club Bloemfontein Collegians.

“My body and mind can’t understand that we are doing social (rugby). It needs to be serious. It is either that you are all in or not.”

She was invited to a national women’s sevens pre-season camp and has quickly taken her rugby career to the next level.

Mdletshe was selected for the South African side that competed at the Rugby Africa Women’s Sevens Olympics 2024 Qualifier. She would have made her debut for the Springbok sevens team in Tunisia in October 2023 but unfortunately picked up an injury.

Watch the video featureto get a glimpse of Sne Mdletshe’s journey and life.

News Archive

DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture
2005-05-19

DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture: Language and language activism in a time of transformation (summary)
Proff Hennie van Coller and Jaap Steyn

Language activism necessary for multilingualism
The awareness is growing that language activism will be needed to bring about a truly democratic multi-lingual society. What is quite clear is that a firm resolve must continuously resist the concentrated pressure on Afrikaans-medium schools (and universities) to allow themselves to be anglicised through becoming first parallel medium, then dual medium, and finally English medium institutions.

Proff Hennie van Coller and Jaap Steyn said this last night (Wednesday night) in the 24th DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture at the University of the Free State. Prof van Coller is head of the Department Afrikaans, Dutch, German and French at the UFS. Both are widely honoured for their contributions to Afrikaans and the promotion of Afrikaans.

They discussed three periods of transformation since 1902, and said about the current phase, which started in 1994:  “Besides all institutions and councils having to be representative of South Africa’s racial composition, places of education were required to open their doors. Quite rapidly this policy has had the result that schools and universities may be solely English medium, but not solely Afrikaans medium. Afrikaans medium institutions — if they claim the right to remain Afrikaans — are quickly branded racist, even though their student body may include all races.

“Education departments are presently exerting great pressure on Afrikaans medium schools to become double or parallel medium schools.  Parallel medium education is an equitable solution provided it can be sustained. Established parallel medium schools, such as Grey College in Bloemfontein, have catered even-handedly for English and Afrikaans speakers for decades. But the situation is different in the parallel medium (and still worse in the double medium) schools that spring up usually at the behest of a department of education.

“Afrikaans schools are converted almost over-night into parallel or dual medium schools without any additional personnel being provided. Depending on the social environment, a parallel medium school becomes reconstituted as a dual medium school on average in five to eight years, and dual medium school becomes an English-only school in two to three years. Some Afrikaans medium schools have become English medium in just three years.

“Though the Constitution recognises mono-lingual schools, officials in the provinces insist that Afrikaans schools become dual or parallel medium; English medium schools are left undisturbed. One must conclude that the tacit aim of the state is English as the sole official language, despite the lip-service paid to multi-lingualism, and the optimistic references to post-apartheid South Africa as a ‘rainbow’ nation.”

They said a recent study has shown that the 1 396 Afrikaans schools in the six provinces in 1993 have dwindled to 844. The fall off in the Free State is from 153 to 97; in the Western Cape from 759 to 564; in Gauteng from 274 to 155; in Mapumalanga from 90 to 3; in the North West from 82 to 13; and in Limpopo Province from 38 to 12.

They said the changes at universities, too, have been severe, as university staffs well know. Ten years ago there were five Afrikaans universities. Today there are none. The government demanded that all universities be open to all, which has meant that all universities have had to become English medium. And no additional funding was forthcoming for the changes. The government policy amounts to a language “tax” imposed on the Afrikaans community for using Afrikaans.

“Only when all schools (and universities) are English will the clamor cease. Academics and educationists are beginning to speak openly of forming pressure groups to save Afrikaans schools, and of using litigation as one of their methods. 59% of Afrikaans parents have said they would support strong action if Afrikaans were no longer a medium of instruction at schools.”

 

 


 

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