Amandla. Twelve years.

It sometimes seems like only yesterday, but today is the 12th anniversary of the establishment of democracy in South Africa. In the midst of problems, such as high crime, there are, as Benjamin Pogrund writes, some successes:

On the one hand, there are many successes in overcoming the heritage of discrimination and deprivation left by apartheid. A third more households have sanitation and the number of people with cellphones or landlines has risen 2.8 million to 6.7 million, says the South African Institute of Race Relations. It notes that GDP per head will reach its highest level to date this year. That tells a revealing story: the best year so far was 1981, when GDP reached R23,972 (in constant 2000 prices). By 1993, the year before democracy began, it had plunged to R1,996. The progress made since then is expected to take GDP to R24,233 this year.

Public spending on education is nearly double that of Germany and Brazil but the problems are immense. Classes for many thousands of children, it is said, are held under trees. Examination results in schools and universities especially in mathematics, are extremely poor for blacks, leading the Institute of Race Relations to say that the "figures suggest that our education system is still failing African pupils and students to an alarming, even horrifying, extent".

This is not the great leap forward in education that helped to drive countries like Korea and Singapore into thriving modern economies. But a newspaper story gives hope of what can be: it's about matriculation pupils at the Moses Mnisi high school in a remote rural area in the north-east, near the Kruger national park. When the pupils receive a phone call at 2am they know it can only be their teacher, Vivian Makhubele, reports the Sunday Times. She phones to exhort her pupils to burn the midnight oil. "Pupils have become so conditioned to her pre-dawn wake-up call that they now often phone Makhubele first to assure her that they are studying."

The teacher's passion, and the school's commitment to help its pupils succeed, are resulting in dramatic results: 18 university passes in 2003, 53 in 2004 and 90 last year.

It is being achieved against the odds: there is no library or laboratory; 1,590 pupils pack into 16 classrooms; set books are in short supply; two pit toilets serve 745 boys. Yet teachers put in unpaid hours in the afternoons, on Saturdays and holidays to give extra coaching. As Vivian Makhubele tells her pupils: "The roots of education are bitter but the fruits are sweet. When you need a friend to support you in time of trouble, I am here for you 24 hours."

If only there was more of that spirit.

It is an uphill struggle, no doubt about that. But the spirit of that teacher is one of the most encouraging signs of hope in all of Africa.