Constant concern over the dire shortage of black academics in South African institutions of higher learning may have received a positive response from a young academic returning home from a long stint in the US.
While Soweto-born Professor Hlonipha Mokoena does not see her latest career move as the answer to that concern, she admits she is happy to be back and be associated with her home town's University of the Witwatersrand.
Mokoena joined the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) in June as an associate professor after working at Columbia University, New York, in the same position.
She has a strong research interest in SA's intellectual history, something she shared with a wider audience in her 2011 book Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual. Fuze was among the earliest African intellectuals who benefited from Christian education by missionary organisations. He was associated with the Inanda Seminary School in KwaZulu-Natal which happens to be Mokoena's alma mater.
Despite an overwhelming outcry over intellectual input of blacks in academia and the state of education in post-apartheid SA, Mokoena is calling for calm.
"We should want to cultivate our minds and intellect because we think that it makes us better human beings, especially that it enhances our ethical sensibility.
"An education that is devoid of ethics is empty and meaningless and will produce smart but reckless human beings. The benefits to society of having an intelligent and articulate citizenry are priceless; they cannot be measured in terms of GDP per capita or literacy rates or productivity," she says.
The reasons for the scarcity of black academics are multiple and cannot be addressed at the level of "academia", Mokoenas says.
"We need to start the conversation at primary school level. At the core of an academic mind is curiosity, and curiosity cannot be taught - it can only be nurtured.
"Children are naturally curious and I would argue that our education system destroys this curiosity and replaces it with anxiety about performance ... many years of anxiety about tests or exams.
"Learning should be a joyous experience."
Mokoena feels the climate of learning should be altered to be inspirational at school level so that young people will take this joy and curiosity with them to college level.
"They do not have the wherewithal to maximise their university experience by choosing courses that excite them; reading outside the curriculum; going to extra-curricular events like theatre or visiting an art gallery or going to a music concert.
"All these experiences should be standard for a university student, but it's not happening, despite the fact that many universities are within walking distance of theatres, galleries, cinemas, book shops, libraries, and so on. My experiences as a woman in academia will probably end up in a book, so I have to start working on it."
Mokoena is hopeful her stint at Wits as a researcher, involving writing and publishing, will provide intellectual space and time to complete her second book. Her new research is on the figure of the Zulu policeman. Despite coming from a family bearing a Sotho surname, she functions and sees herself as a Zulu person.
"My father's family are not technically Basotho. It's a long and complicated story that is not easy to explain in an interview. I consider myself Zulu because I was raised by my Zulu grandparents who taught me the language."
About the progress of women in SA today, given international reports praising the country for its above-average allocation of corporate positions to women, Mokoena warns against the danger of only celebrating the success of women in the corporate world.
"This would have the effect of devaluing other professions. We need to think about the success of women in all sectors of society - from boardrooms to classrooms."
For eight years Mokoena was attached to Columbia University, eventually rising to the position of associate professor of anthropology.
Columbia is where another pioneering African intellectual, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, earned his BA in 1906 and LLD doctorate in 1928. "It was an honour for me to be associated with Columbia, given Ka Isaka Seme's achievements there."
Still youthful at 38, Mokoena's passion for youth and education is undisguised.
"The only kind of education worth having is the kind of education that inspires the mind. If we continue to subject young people to assessment criteria and expectations that are not geared towards cultivating their minds, then the only consequence is the continued production of a poorly educated, low-skilled (and angry) workforce. It does not bode well for our country."
Academic boost for SA
Constant concern over the dire shortage of black academics in South African institutions of higher learning may have received a positive response from a young academic returning home from a long stint in the US.
While Soweto-born Professor Hlonipha Mokoena does not see her latest career move as the answer to that concern, she admits she is happy to be back and be associated with her home town's University of the Witwatersrand.
Mokoena joined the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) in June as an associate professor after working at Columbia University, New York, in the same position.
She has a strong research interest in SA's intellectual history, something she shared with a wider audience in her 2011 book Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual. Fuze was among the earliest African intellectuals who benefited from Christian education by missionary organisations. He was associated with the Inanda Seminary School in KwaZulu-Natal which happens to be Mokoena's alma mater.
Despite an overwhelming outcry over intellectual input of blacks in academia and the state of education in post-apartheid SA, Mokoena is calling for calm.
"We should want to cultivate our minds and intellect because we think that it makes us better human beings, especially that it enhances our ethical sensibility.
"An education that is devoid of ethics is empty and meaningless and will produce smart but reckless human beings. The benefits to society of having an intelligent and articulate citizenry are priceless; they cannot be measured in terms of GDP per capita or literacy rates or productivity," she says.
The reasons for the scarcity of black academics are multiple and cannot be addressed at the level of "academia", Mokoenas says.
"We need to start the conversation at primary school level. At the core of an academic mind is curiosity, and curiosity cannot be taught - it can only be nurtured.
"Children are naturally curious and I would argue that our education system destroys this curiosity and replaces it with anxiety about performance ... many years of anxiety about tests or exams.
"Learning should be a joyous experience."
Mokoena feels the climate of learning should be altered to be inspirational at school level so that young people will take this joy and curiosity with them to college level.
"They do not have the wherewithal to maximise their university experience by choosing courses that excite them; reading outside the curriculum; going to extra-curricular events like theatre or visiting an art gallery or going to a music concert.
"All these experiences should be standard for a university student, but it's not happening, despite the fact that many universities are within walking distance of theatres, galleries, cinemas, book shops, libraries, and so on. My experiences as a woman in academia will probably end up in a book, so I have to start working on it."
Mokoena is hopeful her stint at Wits as a researcher, involving writing and publishing, will provide intellectual space and time to complete her second book. Her new research is on the figure of the Zulu policeman. Despite coming from a family bearing a Sotho surname, she functions and sees herself as a Zulu person.
"My father's family are not technically Basotho. It's a long and complicated story that is not easy to explain in an interview. I consider myself Zulu because I was raised by my Zulu grandparents who taught me the language."
About the progress of women in SA today, given international reports praising the country for its above-average allocation of corporate positions to women, Mokoena warns against the danger of only celebrating the success of women in the corporate world.
"This would have the effect of devaluing other professions. We need to think about the success of women in all sectors of society - from boardrooms to classrooms."
For eight years Mokoena was attached to Columbia University, eventually rising to the position of associate professor of anthropology.
Columbia is where another pioneering African intellectual, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, earned his BA in 1906 and LLD doctorate in 1928. "It was an honour for me to be associated with Columbia, given Ka Isaka Seme's achievements there."
Still youthful at 38, Mokoena's passion for youth and education is undisguised.
"The only kind of education worth having is the kind of education that inspires the mind. If we continue to subject young people to assessment criteria and expectations that are not geared towards cultivating their minds, then the only consequence is the continued production of a poorly educated, low-skilled (and angry) workforce. It does not bode well for our country."
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