Teboho Moja

In 1998, Professor Teboho Moja became the first black person, and the first woman, to be appointed Chair of the Unisa Council.

The daughter of a nurse and a postmaster-turned-businessman, Teboho Moja grew up in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, and attended the University of the North and the University of the Witwatersrand. She graduated with a Master of Education in 1982 and went on to forge an extraordinary career as an educationist. In 1994, with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin and considerable management experience behind her, she was appointed as an adviser to the newly democratic South Africa’s Minister of Education. In this position and others, she played a pioneering role in the reform of higher education in South Africa and has published extensively on the topic. Now based at New York University, she has, at intervals, continued to serve South Africa as a policy adviser. She has also held prominent positions in several international educational initiatives, including UNESCO’s Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge.  Professor Moja recounted her experiences at Unisa in the publication Unisa, 1873-2018: The making of a distance learning institution.

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