Biography of Dr Namhla Sotuku

Dr Namhla Sotuku passed away in December 2020 as a result of Covid-19 complications. The ECD community and DHET would like to acknowledge her contribution as a champion for the sector. Sotuku held a PHD in Education Management and Policy Formulation. She was the first director of the University of Fort Hare (UFH) Early Childhood Development Centre of Excellence, which focuses on research, teaching and learning and scholarly community engagement in ECD. She was an experienced teacher, researcher and teacher education materials developer and was a member of UFH’S Distance Education Project team that developed the innovative distance education B Ed programme for primary school teachers. The programme attracted international interest and won awards locally for its teacher education materials.

Sotuku has led various research projects. Some of the most recent include, a project on engaging communities in educational development through Community Literacy and Numeracy Groups, and a project commissioned by the DHET and the EU on developing UFH’S isixhosa-based bilingual Foundation Phase B Ed degree. She was also the lead coordinator for the Dhet/eu-funded Project for Early Childhood Policy Analysis. A collaboration between Wheelock College (Boston) and UFH resulted in her leading the development and the delivery of the Experiential Development Programme (EDP) – a four-course certificate in ECD.

Sotuku’s community engagement activities included the establishment of ECD communities of practice in rural and peri-urban contexts in the Buffalo City Municipal area for maximizing community and family engagement in ECD.