Palesa Mary Mofokeng

Nominee's Province:
Gauteng

Age:
26

Project Name/Description:
Edtech Bridges

More info:
https://twitter.com/edtechbridges

Palesa Mary Mofokeng, 26, is an academic who works hard to produce exceptional students through her innovative, inclusive and dialogical, teaching methods. She is a full-time teacher by profession and has taught at Rosebank College (Pretoria CBD) while pursuing her master’s in Educational Technology degree with Wits University. She completed the degree in March this year. Mofokeng also did her undergraduate and honors degrees at the same university. At Rosebank College, she excelled as an educator because of her practical teaching methods. “My teaching practices encourage my students to be actively involved in the processes of learning. I always try to use practical examples that my students can relate to so they can understand the content/concepts better,” she says. This excellence was also reflected in various feedback obtained from the students and lesson plan evaluations and reviews that the institution conducts on a regular basis. As a student, Mofokeng was involved in a number of leadership roles, including being elected to the Student Representative Council as an academic officer. She has appeared in a number of online academic discussions where pertinent issues in African scholarship would be discussed. Mofokeng, who grew up a lonely child after the death of her mother while she was still only five, credits her many teachers for steering her towards a career in teaching. “My teachers saw my potential and groomed me towards that potential long before I saw it. For any provincial and national competitions, my teachers ensured I was thoroughly prepared. My one teacher, in Grade 12, even paid for my matric uniform. I’m forever indebted to the teachers and lecturers I got to interact with. Those interactions continue to shape the kind of person I am and teacher I am becoming.” Last year, Mofokeng, together with three colleagues, co-founded Edtech Bridges, a non-governmental organisation that seeks to “capacitate teachers to use technology as a tool for teaching to enhance learning”. Mofokeng strongly believes that education can better prepare learners for the future if the sector could involve other stakeholders in the shaping of a more reflective, intentional, and contextual curriculum that can help curb some of the country’s challenges, such as the unacceptably high youth unemployment and decaying morals.