Focus on women at conference

THE role of women in education and society and the next 20 years will be in focus this weekend at the Eastern Cape’s National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa’s (Naptosa) annual conference.

The three-day conference, themed “20 Years – Looking Back, Moving Forward”, will be held at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University indoor sports centre at the Missionvale Campus.

Naptosa provincial executive officer Mandisa Mannie said the keynote speaker, Naptosa president Basil Manuel, would address the theme as it was important to look back before moving forward.

“It is imperative that in order to move forward, one has to do some retrospection to rewrite and rethink the systems applied in the past, to either adopt the best or adapt the worst or even discard it, to suit today’s climate.”

She said they would also be acknowledging the role of women in education and society with an address by Yokhuselo Haven for Battered Women director Lindsay Ziehl on the power women possess to overcome.

“Our desire is to create a positive culture in education through deliberations on the inputs from different sources and take resolutions to ensure that improvement in the culture of learning and teaching is promoted.

“Also, to forge a way forward to allow every educator the opportunity to make a difference because they have to manage themselves as well as their situations effectively, to the benefit of the learner.”