Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

28 January 2026

4-minute read

Across South Africa a couple of weeks ago, matric learners received their final results, a deciding factor in most of their lives and futures. Yet these results don’t always reflect the true understanding or long-term ability of the child.

While some kids struggle in certain teaching systems, others may excel. Nurturing confidence alongside creative learning is about teaching learners to ask questions, make mistakes safely, and develop problem-solving skills that extend beyond the classroom. In today’s education system, success is often measured by marks, percentages, and report cards. While results matter, they don’t always reflect true understanding or long-term ability. Many learners achieve high marks through memorisation, yet struggle to apply concepts, think critically, or explain their reasoning. Creating confident thinkers means shifting the focus from “getting the right answer” to understanding why the answer is right. When learners understand concepts completely, confidence follows naturally — and strong marks become a by-product instead of the sole goal.

Zahra Mahomed, doula student and founder of The Learning Lab SA, a tuition centre for Grades 1–12, offering support across all subjects, says that she loves to build confidence in children who come in demotivated, helping them to understand the subjects and achieving beyond their personal capacity. The Learning Lab focuses on developing confident thinkers by encouraging understanding over parrot learning, bringing out the best in every learner and helping them excel academically.

Zahra is passionate about helping both children and other people, which explains her two different paths of being a doula and that of educating kids. She feels that high marks don’t always equal true understanding or confidence in learners.

According to Zahra, many learners cope academically but lack confidence in their thinking ability. Critical thinking and knowing how to apply it trumps high marks, she emphasizes, and regurgitating learnt content does not give learners the ability to think. Some learners might struggle to explain concepts, others rely heavily on formulas, and still others freeze during problem-solving tasks.

By merely memorising something, the learner does not necessarily develop the ability to think. When tutors conduct a lesson, they can pinpoint learners who memorise learn as those who don’t ask questions or those who cannot answer spot questions. Learners who ask questions are usually critical thinkers. Within the South African system, it is possible to give learners the opportunity to think critically. However, learners who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and classrooms with more than 40 learners in them, may struggle more with this.

Mistakes do play a role in building confident learners. Parents and educators can teach children to respond to mistakes more constructively by asking questions and engaging deeply with different sources and materials. As parents, while we don’t respond well to mistakes made by our children, Zahra says that mistakes are learning curves and opportunities. It gives us the chance to find out what really went wrong and to encourage growth instead of responding negatively, so that our children can develop resilience and become more open to learning.

Parents can support confidence at home without putting excessive pressure on results and marks by focusing on effort instead of just concentrating on results alone. “Confidence fosters resilience and curiosity, and also a growth mind-set, which leads to better academic outcomes and a better positive mind-set towards learning,” concludes Zahra, emphasizing that hard working will definitely give you the results you want.

So how do we create confidence in our children? Faaiza shared these tips:

• Be your child’s biggest role model – be confident in challenging situations so they can emulate that behaviour.
• Allow your child to make his or her own mistakes in order to learn and grow from them.
• Give them a safe space to develop their EQ, to express themselves emotionally, a “judgement-free zone” where you really listen to their feelings and emotions.
• Teach them to persevere – Children who face challenges or don’t have an easy ride in life generally have a better resilience when dealing with difficult situations.
• Allow your child to develop a “need to succeed” by teaching them to build themselves up through taking on new tasks and skills.
• Teach problem-solving skills and build mental prowess by helping them to think through options instead of just offering solutions immediately.
• Give constructive feedback and help them improve on their mistakes.

Children who work hard consistently earn the duas of their parents alongside developing the ability to problem-solve. Give your children the confidence and independence to create the ability to think critically. It is better to build confidence than to take over our children’s problems.

Listen to the full program with Faaiza Munshi and Zahra Mahomed here.