English Olympiad

The South African National English Olympiad
A joint project of SACEE and the Grahamstown Foundation

Background

The English Olympiad started as a small project in 1976 when Dr Malcolm Venter, a member of the Eastern Cape branch committee of SACEE (and now the Council’s National Chairperson) was asked to organise such an event locally. The first competition attracted 119 entries and the winner received a prize of R50.

The following year the Grahamstown Foundation took on responsibility for the general administration of the Olympiad, and the competition was extended to cover the whole of the Cape Province. In 1978 the project was further extended to include all of South Africa and by 2015, when a First Additional Language (FAL) stream was added to the project, the number of entries exceeded 8 000 from more than 400 schools nationwide – and the top prize had become R30 000!

Notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic and related restrictions that took effect just after the 2020 Olympiad examinations, the project has continued without interruption. After an understandable 32% dip in numbers for the 2021 competition, Home Language (HL) entry numbers have largely recovered, while a current focus of the Olympiad Team is on the further development and marketing of the English First Additional Language competition.

From the start, SACEE decided to use an ‘open book’ examination format, which has meant that candidates may take their texts into the examination room with them. This has allowed for a themed syllabus, and examiners have been able to ask questions which are open-ended and require more personal responses than typical questions encountered in high school examinations.

SACEE is proud of the ongoing success of the English Olympiad project, and is grateful to the Grahamstown Foundation (its partner in the project) for its highly professional organisation and administrative support, and to Rhodes University for its scholarship prizes for the top fifty prize winners.

The Eastern Cape branch of SACEE remains responsible for the academic aspects of the competition, having provided most of the examiners since the inception of the project, as well as an army of well-qualified and experienced markers and moderators. The branch also publishes the annual English Olympiad anthology and a related study guide.

What is the ‘English Olympiad’?

The English Olympiad is an annual nationwide examination open to all secondary schools and their pupils in Grades 9, 10, 11 and 12. Its aim is to enrich and to deepen the candidates’ appreciation of the English language and its literature, and to expose them to challenging texts and ideas that they would not normally encounter in a standard school syllabus.

Candidates are required to study an anthology of literary texts that is compiled each year by the Chief Examiner. Each anthology is based on a specific theme such as “Care and Compassion”, “War and Peace”, “A Twist in the Tale”or “School writing”, and might consist of just one genre such as drama or poetry, or a mixture of genres.
Preparation for the Olympiad examinations is based on a self-study programme in which a study guide assists individuals or study groups to interpret and to appreciate the set texts, giving clear pointers to context and asking pertinent questions to encourage understanding in depth, as well as the relevance of each text. The study guide also provides advice on how to approach the examinations and how to write a discursive essay.
In Olympiad examinations candidates are not required to regurgitate notes or facts. The Olympiad questions seek for well-expressed, intelligent, critical, personal responses to the prescribed works.
Although a ranking in the Top100 HL or Top20 FAL brings with it considerable prestige, and although the Top20 HL and Top5 FAL receive generous cash prizes, the Olympiad is more about participation and intellectual enrichment of all, and candidates who take their preparation for the Olympiad seriously are therefore bound to benefit from the experience.
The top 50 candidates are awarded scholarships by Rhodes University that cover their academic fees for their first year of study at the University, while each of the top twelve HL and the top five FAL candidates enjoys free entry to the midyear National Schools’ Festival in Grahamstown/Makhanda, as well as free accommodation and meals.
The closing date for entries and the payment of entry fees is 30 September each year but has been extended until 10th October 2024 for the 2025 Olympiad. Printed anthologies and study guides are distributed to participating schools at the end of October, and the annual examinations take place at each of the participating schools in the first week of March of the following year.

For more information, kindly click on the links below:

For further details, please contact:
The Olympiad Officer, PO Box 304, Grahamstown 6140
E-Mail: olympiad@foundation.org.za
Tel: 046 603 1145 / 046 603 1107

The 2025 English Olympiad
Examination Date: 4 March 2025 (11h00-14h00)
NB – The deadline for entries has been extended to 10 October 2024.

The theme of the 50^th English Olympiad will be “Celebration”, for which an anthology of literary works and study guide has been compiled by the Chief and Co Examiners, for publication by the Eastern Cape Branch of SACEE.

The examinations team for the 2025 Olympiad will be led by two Co-Examiners, these being Dr Malcolm Venter and Yvette Morgan, while Tasneem Dolley will once again be Assistant Examiner for the FAL examination. The markers will all be fully-qualified teachers of English, most of whom have experience in the assessment of NSC and/or IEB examinations.

For more information please click on the links below:

If you have entered, the following documents may be helpful in preparation of the exam:

Memorandum To Study Guide Questions for the 2025 English Olympiad

To view past examination papers, please click on the relevant link below:

Home Language (HL)	First Additional Language (FAL):
HL 2023	FAL 2023
HL 2022	FAL 2022
HL2021	FAL 2021

The 2024 English Olympiad

The theme of the 49th English Olympiad, examined in March 2024, was ‘Resilience’, for which an anthology of prose memoirs and a related study guide was compiled by the Chief Examiner, for publication by the Eastern Cape Branch of SACEE. Most of the selected texts have been taken from works by African and South Arican writers.

The Chief Examiner for the 49^th Olympiad was Liz Herselman, who was assitsted by Anné de Plessis (Home Language) and Tasneem Dolley (First Additional Language), while the markers were all fully-qualified teachers of English, most of whom have experience in the assessment of NSC and/or IEB examinations.