Professor
Shireen Motala

Professor Motala was awarded the SARChI Chair: Teaching and Learning in July 2020 at a Tier 1 level with its inception in October 2020. The Chair, located within the Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg (UJ), is supported by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and by the National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa. She was head of the Postgraduate School at UJ until September 2020 and is professor in the Faculty of Education (FoE). She is a member of the Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf).

Prior to joining UJ in 2010, Prof Motala was the Director of the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand. In 2010 she was appointed Director of the newly established Postgraduate Centre: Research and Innovation at the University of Johannesburg and in 2016 became Senior Director of the Postgraduate School, joining the executive leadership group (ELG) at UJ. She is currently UJ’s representative on the international Council of Graduate Schools and participated in the Universitas 21 activities.

She was Chairperson of the UNESCO South African Commission (2001-2006), the first inaugural president of the South African Research Association (SAERA) (2013-2014) and appointed to serve on the Council of Higher Education (CHE) for two terms (2010 – 2018).

An NRF rated researcher, she has initiated collaborations between universities across Africa and with Asia and Europe and this has led to the formation of long-term regional and international partnerships. Playing a leadership role in research, she was the principal investigator for the international Consortium for Research on Equity, Access and Transitions in Education (CREATE). She has led several strategies for research capacity development, knowledge management, research income generation, and stakeholder relationship management. Promoting scholarship and a sound intellectual culture and developing the next generation of scholars to contribute to societal transformation have been in the forefront of her activities and will continue to be during tenure as Chair. In 2020, Prof Motala co-edited the books From Ivory Towers to Ebony Towers: Transforming Humanities Curricula in South Africa, Africa and African American Studies (Jacana) and Transforming Universities in South Africa: Pathways to Higher Education Reform (Brill), and in 2023 Creating the New African University (Brill).