Obtaining a law degree is no easy feat for the average student, but Driefontein’s Nkosingiphile Nyalane is anything but average.

As a blind student, the 35-year-old has overcome significant challenges – including poverty and bullying – to to earn his LLB degree.

Nyalane hails from a small informal settlement on the outskirts of Tongaat, where he was bullied and labeled as lazy due to his deteriorating vision, which was undiagnosed at the time.

He realised in Grade 1 that he was different from other children when he could not read what was on the blackboard.

“The class teacher misunderstood this as a lack of effort,” said Nyalane.

His vision continued to deteriorate and he was eventually diagnosed with glaucoma in Grade 3.

Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that cause vision loss and blindness by damaging the optic nerve in the back of your eye. Although common in adults, glaucoma is rare in children.

As his eventual blindness impacted his learning abilities, he was moved to a special needs school where he learnt to read braille. It was the hours of poring over human rights articles for disabled people from a braille magazine, that gave birth to his passion for law.

His determination saw him achieving four distinctions in his matric exams, and enrolling at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to pursue a law degree.

”I read some articles about Justice Zak Jacoob, an alumnus of my school, and it further inspired my dream that becoming a lawyer seemed attainable.”

Transitioning from a special needs school to a university presented Nyanale with challenges though, and he failed half of his modules.

”The lack of support saw me fail to improve my performance and I had to drop out of university,” he said.

This tested his determination but Nyanale challenged himself to continue and he applied for enrolment at the University of Free State.

The challenges remained the same as there was little to no assistance for blind students.

“Granting requests that made learning more conducive for me would make it seem like I wanted an easy pass.

“This caused me to struggle in some modules and resulted in me taking longer than the typical four years to complete the LLB degree,” said Nyalane, who refused to quit for the remaining 10 years that it took to complete his degree.

“My perseverance paid off. I was able to graduate, achieving what many deemed impossible.”

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