This is pretty funny. I had something vaguely similar happen to me, although not nearly as major.
In my matric year (grade 12) I took three first languages (although I already had two first languages by grade 10). The department of education did not like it, but I did it anyway, with some encouragement from my language teachers.
Fast forward to the final exams, I did well enough to make the provincial top 40, but was excluded due to what I still think was a bug in their system. Funnily enough, I walked to the provincial minister for education (later the national Minister of Health) and told him what happened. For a short while I was a radio celebrity due to the minister personally telling people "Look, this white boy got a B in Sepedi so you guys really should stop complaining and do better." [1]
The error was not corrected and I was actually at the ceremony by chance for having gotten best in English in the province. I also randomly got a call from some trust and got about $100 for my creative writing essay.
In any case I guess the whole radio thing was more amusing to me and actually was a better prize in the end.
[1] In South Africa, a B is 70%—79%; I had gotten 76%.
Edit: This is meant to be a comment on the latest commit—the 200 year old ammendment that got ratified in 1992, essentially due to a C being awarded for an essay about how the 200 year old ammendment could be ratified.
In my matric year (grade 12) I took three first languages (although I already had two first languages by grade 10). The department of education did not like it, but I did it anyway, with some encouragement from my language teachers.
Fast forward to the final exams, I did well enough to make the provincial top 40, but was excluded due to what I still think was a bug in their system. Funnily enough, I walked to the provincial minister for education (later the national Minister of Health) and told him what happened. For a short while I was a radio celebrity due to the minister personally telling people "Look, this white boy got a B in Sepedi so you guys really should stop complaining and do better." [1]
The error was not corrected and I was actually at the ceremony by chance for having gotten best in English in the province. I also randomly got a call from some trust and got about $100 for my creative writing essay.
In any case I guess the whole radio thing was more amusing to me and actually was a better prize in the end.
[1] In South Africa, a B is 70%—79%; I had gotten 76%.