Professor Di Wilmot honours the anti-apartheid activist Matthew Goniwe in her the World Teachers' Day Memorial Lecture

The Eastern Cape Department of Education Celebration at the International Convention Centre in East London 4 October 2019
The Eastern Cape Department of Education Celebration at the International Convention Centre in East London 4 October 2019

The Dean of Education, Professor Di Wilmot, gave the Matthew Goniwe Memorial Lecture at the Eastern Cape Department of Education’s World Teachers’ Day Celebrations held at the ICC in East London on 4 October. The title  of the lecture was “ The World has moved, have our teachers moved? “ in the context of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Professor Wilmot started the lecture by paying tribute to Matthew Goniwe, a great Mathematics and Science teacher whose life was taken prematurely before asking:  “What would Matthew Goniwe say if he was present here today?” Would he be proud of what teachers are doing and achieving?

The memorial lecture was framed around key questions including: Why must our teachers move? What’s enabling and what’s constraining them from moving? Have our teachers moved far enough, and are our teachers moving fast enough? 

The lecture generated a lot of questions and comments from the audience of some 400 teachers, principals, departmental officials. A robust panel discussion followed after the lecture with representatives from the three main teacher unions and Professor Wilmot engaging on the issues that had been raised in the lecture.

World Teachers' Day is celebrated globally on the 5th of October. The Eastern Cape Department of Education held a World Teachers' Day Celebration this year at the International Convention Center over two days (4-5 October).  

"The event saw 44 awards given to deserving schools, principles and teachers for their role in improving the standard of education in the province. The province achieved a 70.6% pass rate - a 5.6 percentage point (or 8.5%) increase from 2017, the largest improvement in the country" (Daily Dispatch 7 October 2019 p3).