UCT professor honoured as ‘Unesco Chair’

UCT vice-chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng has congratulated associate Professor Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams on being awarded the title of Unesco Chair in Open Education and Social Justice for her contribution to ground-breaking research and implementing initiatives focused on open education in the global south.

Phakeng has encouraged her to challenge the prevailing discourses on the topic and to help people around the world think wider.

“Social justice for us at UCT and in the country is something that we grapple with a lot, especially given the challenges we’ve had in the past few years,” she said.

Hodgkinson-Williams, based at UCT’s Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, teaches online learning design and advanced research design courses to postgraduate students.

Unesco Chairs Programme, an initiative of the UN, involves 700 institutions in 116 countries and seeks to promote international inter-university co-operation and networking to boost institutional capacities through knowledge-sharing and collaboration.

The network of chairs serves as a think tank and bridge-builder between academia, civil society, and local communities, as well as researchers and policymakers.

Hodgkinson-Williams will focus on capacity-building, which she said involved developing and growing students and academics in the open education context. She described open education as a process of sharing educational materials and resources, and exposing all students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, to teaching and learning.

She said it offered the freedom to reuse and share learning materials without any constraints.

“But it’s not just about materials, it’s about what we are teaching our students, in what language we are teaching them, the examples we’re providing, and evaluating whose culture is being privileged in those materials,” she said.

It’s not just about materials, it’s about what we are teaching our students

Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams

Associate Professor, UCT, and Unesco Chair