Page 66 - Thetha Issue 7

ALUMNI FEATURES
A woman for all seasons
Dr Muki Moeng, Deputy
Vice-Chancellor: Learning
and Teaching is Nelson
Mandela University’s most
senior alumna. A true
servant leader, her love of
education and compassion
for humanity are a
powerful combination –
and her story is one of
unparalleled achievement
against all odds.
By Beth Cooper Howell
66 | Thetha Edition 7 | 2023
oung Muki’s first teaching
Y tools were an old car bonnet
and a piece of charcoal.
After class, to mitigate
the effects of disrupted education
during the height of apartheid, the
Graaff-Reinet teenager started study
groups, helping friends to revise their
schoolwork.
At 15, the outspoken Congress
of South African Students (COSAS)
member spent two months in jail.
During the turbulent 1980s, many
student activists missed class – she
and her peers repeated Grade 8
three times.
Ironically, the architects of black
education failed to break her spirit.
Instead, they achieved the opposite.
Dr Muki Moeng, Deputy Vice-
Chancellor: Learning and Teaching at
Nelson Mandela University, holds a
Doctorate in Education and decades
of dedication to a love of learning.
Years later, she would beat the