OUR PRESIDENT
Mrs T is an educationist with extensive advisory and technical experience in the management of education, policy development, policy implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation in the public sector. Mrs Palesa Tyobeka (Mrs T)
She has worked in Education both within and outside of government in South Africa for a total of 41 years.
Thirty-two of these were in Management and Leadership positions at various levels of the education system.
Mrs T grew up on the campus of Fort Hare University in the very small town of Alice in the Eastern Cape. Other than the University, in the 1960s and 1970s, Alice also boasted Lovedale College and the Federal Theological Seminary which were major educational institutions. This environment inculcated in Mrs T a passion for education and excellence which have remained undiminished over the years.
Throughout her educational career she attended schools with a history of producing some of South Africa’s most celebrated leaders: Lovedale College, Healdtown High School and Inanda Seminary in Durban. This sense of history and the desire to follow in the footsteps of those who had studied in the same institutions further cemented Mrs T’s belief in the importance of education. Mrs T attended the University of Fort Hare where she majored in English and Psychology and went on to do a University Education Diploma (UED).
She completed her BEd at UNISA and her Masters focusing on the Management of Educational Innovation at Reading University in the UK. Along the way she collected a number of other diplomas, certificates and short courses at various universities including the University of London in the UK, the University of Pretoria, Harvard Institute of Education and Ohio State University both in the US as well as the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
She started her career as a teacher at Ohlange High School in Durban, later moving to Fumana High School in Katlehong and finally to Mothimako High School in Limpopo. In Limpopo Mrs T drew the attention of the Department of Education because of the community education programmes focused on learners that she ran over weekends and school holidays and was invited to serve as the first Subject Advisor for English in the Mankweng Circuit. She was later appointed to the Head Office of the then Lebowa Department of Education to head the English Advisory Service – a post she held for a period of seven years before joining the national Department of Education in democratic South Africa as a Director in February 1995.
She was the first woman to be appointed into the management echelon of the newly established Department. This is the team that was charged with merging the various education departments of the apartheid government and putting in place a framework with legislation, policies and programs for a new system of quality education for all.
Throughout her career Mrs T enjoyed putting in place new initiatives or leading new programmes in the system of education. Many of these remain flagship programmes of the Department of Basic Education. She retired in October 2019 as Deputy Director General for the first ever Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit of the Department of Basic Education, after serving as Deputy Director General for a period of 16 years (2003 – 2019). Mrs T has served on various professional councils in Education, including the first board of the South African Qualifications Council, UMALUSI and on the SACE Council – the South African Council for Educators. She continues to serve Education in her retirement – serving as Chairperson of the Education Sector Committee of the National Commission for UNESCO in South Africa and also on a number of Boards of Education Non-Governmental and Not-for Profit Organizations in the country. For Mrs T serving Education in South Africa has been a true labour of love.