People and networks
Board
Board
Dr Esi Sutherland-Addy has held visiting lectureships at Manchester University, University of Indiana, University of Birmingham, and L'Institut des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. She has published on, and continues to work in the areas of African theatre, film and music; mythology; and the role of women in African culture and society. In addition, Ms Sutherland-Addy has held portfolios as Deputy Minister for Higher Education and Culture and Tourism of Ghana, has conducted studies for the governments of Ghana, Namibia, Ethiopia, UNESCO, UNICEF and the Commonwealth in various aspects of education. She has served on several boards and commissions including the board of governors of the Commonwealth of Learning for six years. She currently serves on the advisory board of the International Literacy Institute in the University of Pennsylvania, the National Commission on Culture, Afram Publications Ghana and Mmofra Foundation. She is a member of the Forum for African Women Educationalists and the African Literature Association.
Dr Saleem Badat is the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University, South Africa, a position he has held since 2006. He holds Bachelors and Honours degrees in Social Sciences from the University of Natal, a Certificate in Higher Education and Science Policy from Boston University (USA) and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from the University of York (UK).
In 1999 Saleem became the first CEO of the Council on Higher Education which advises the South African Minister of Education on higher education policy issues, and is also responsible for quality assurance. Currently, Dr Badat is the Chairperson of the Association of African Universities Scientific Committee on Higher Education Research; serves on the executive committee of Higher Education South Africa (HESA); is the Chairperson of HESA's Funding Strategy Group; serves on the Development Bank of Southern Africa's education think-tank; and is a trustee of the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust.
Dr Badat is the recipient of numerous academic awards and prizes, including the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship, the Association of Commonwealth Universities scholarship and British Council scholarships. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Free State and York.
He is the author of Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid (Routledge, 2002), co-author of National Policy and a Regional Response in South African Higher Education (James Currey, 2004) and co-editor of Apartheid Education and Popular Struggles in South Africa (Ravan Press, 1990). He has contributed chapters and articles to various books, scholarly journals, magazines and newspapers, and has directed and authored numerous policy reports on South African higher education and science policy.
Dr Moja has been a special advisor to two ministers of Education on Higher Education policy and was board member of the International Institute of Education Planning (IIEP) in Paris. She has worked as the policy analyst for higher education at the Centre for Education Policy Development in South Africa. She has also held office as the president of the Union of Democratic University Staff Associations (UDUSA) and was a founder member of the organisation. She has published extensively on higher education in South Africa and serves on the UNESCO Scientific Committee for Africa. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Global Centre on Private Financing of Higher Education, an initiative of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
Nico Cloete has been the full-time director of CHET since 1997. He is also Extraordinary Professor of Higher Education, University of Western Cape; Visiting Professor, Masters Programme in Higher Education, University of Oslo and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Cape Town. He was actively involved in academic staff organisation and was President of the University of Witwatersrand Staff Association (1991-1992) and General Secretary of the Union of Democratic University Staff Associations of South Africa (1993-1994). He was the research director for the Nelson Mandela appointed National Commission on Higher Education (1995-1996) and served on the South African Ministerial Advisory Council for Universities and Technikons. Dr Cloete initiated the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA) in 2009 and is the co-ordinator of this network. In 2010 he gave the opening keynote at the congress of the European Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Oslo. He has published widely in psychology, sociology and higher education policy. His latest books are Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa (2011) and Shaping the Future of South Africa’s Youth: Rethinking Post School Education and Skills Training (2012).
Before being appointed Rector of UWC, Brian O’Connell was Head of the Western Cape Education Department, from 1995 to October 2001. He obtained a B.A. Honours Degree in History from UNISA (with distinction), and M.A. and M.Ed Degrees from Columbia University in New York.
Prof. Goolam Mohamedbhai is the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mauritius (1995-2005), former President of the International Association of Universities (2004-2008) and former Secretary General of the Association of African Universities (2008-2010). He did his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in civil engineering at the University of Manchester, UK before joining the University of Mauritius as an academic, and was a Fulbright postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Prof. Mohamedbhai has served on a number of national boards or councils, and he was also a director of the State Bank of Mauritius (2003-2006). At the regional/international level, Prof. Mohamedbhai has been a member or chairman of several UNESCO committees on higher education for Africa. He was also chairman of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (2003-2004), the University of the Indian Ocean (1998-2005) and the Regional Scientific Committee for Africa of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge (2005-2008). He is currently a member of the governing Council of the United Nations University. In 2004, he received the distinguished award of Grand Officer of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (GOSK) from the President of Mauritius for his contribution to higher education and in 2009 he received the Symons Award 2009 from the Association of Commonwealth Universities for outstanding contribution to the ACU and to Commonwealth universities.
A Burundi national, Prof. Juma Shabani represents UNESCO in four countries, namely Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in addition to the Secretariat of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat. Until 2002, he was the senior specialist in higher education in Africa at the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Africa, based in Dakar, Senegal. Prior to this appointment, he was a senior specialist in higher education in Eastern and Southern Africa at the UNESCO Regional Office for Science and Technology in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya; deputy secretary-general of the Association of African Universities (AAU) at the AAU secretariat based in Accra, Ghana, for four years and vice rector (vice president) of the University of Burundi for five years. He is currently vice president of the African Academy of Sciences, Co-ordinator of the Virtual Institute for Higher Education in Africa, member of the International Advisory Board of Suffolk University in Boston and Member of the Executive Committee of the Global University Network for Innovations with secretariat in Barcelona, Spain. He studied in mathematics and physics at the State University of Kharkov (Ukraine) and the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. He has been visiting professor/researcher at the University of Bielefeld (Germany), the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Italy) and Sussex University (UK). He speaks and writes fluently in Kiswahili, Kirundi, English, French and Russian. He has published over 80 publications in mathematical physics and higher education.
Dr Brito obtained her forestry degree at Eduardo Mondlane and her PhD in Forest Sciences from Colorado State University. Over the years she has held positions as the head of the Forestry Department, co-ordinator of the Research and Consulting Group at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, the academic vice rector of Eduardo Mondlane University, and minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology. Today, she is the head of UNESCO Science Policy Division in Paris. She developed, over the years, extensive networks in higher education, forestry, ICT and science-related subjects, and she is a member of several boards and steering committees.