Prof Catherine Odora Hoppers, incumbent of the DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Development Education, has received the distinction of being awarded a UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) Honorary Fellow.The awarding of this title acknowledges her dedication to working in the areas of UIL’s mandate and her “substantial contribution to the development of lifelong learning on a global scale”.
By conferring the fellowship, UIL recognises the outstanding work and commitment of Hoppers “as an advocate of adult and continuing education, literacy, and non-formal basic education”.
Hoppers, who was awarded the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Development Education at Unisa in 2007, says that she is simply overwhelmed. “May this country be blessed. May Unisa keep on leading from the front, shaping discourses, practices, and, eventually, cultures as it has been doing and will continue to do!”
The fellowship will be conferred on 16 May at UIL in Hamburg, Germany.
DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Development Education
The DST/NRF SARCHI Chair in Development Education calls for new articulations and an expansions of the knowledge production paradigms, and to bring to the academy and policy makers deep transformation in introducing concepts like Transformation by Enlargement, Cognitive Justice, Restorative Action, Constitutive Rules, Transdisciplinarity, Immersion, Second-Level Indigenisation, Multi-Epistemological Competence, Ethical and Moral Salience, and Citizenship Education.
These concepts brought to bear on the academy cultural atonement coupled with cultural accountability in the articulations of knowledge systems, and for the emancipation of the indigenous voice not only in Africa but the world over in commonly held discourses such as colonialism, lifelong learning, basic education, and science and society.
Awards and honours
In her ten years at Unisa, Hoppers has racked up an impressive array of awards and honours, which now includes the UIL Honorary Fellow.
- An honorary doctorate (honoris causa) in Philosophy from Orebro University in 2008
- An honorary doctorate (honoris causa) in Education from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2012
- Appointment as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) in 2012
- Appointment as the Chair of the African Academy of Science Membership Advisory Council on the Social Science, Humanities, and Cultural Sciences in 2014
- Appointment as “Ambassador for Non-Violence” in Durban University of Technology in 2009; and as “Goodwill Ambassador” for Makerere University in 2011
- Appointment by the Minister of Higher Education (South Africa) as Member of the Task Team on the Ministerial Project on the Future of the Humanities and Social Science in 2014
- A Presidential Medal of Honour for Academic Leadership from the President of Uganda at Uganda’s Golden Jubilee of Independence in 2013
- A National Pioneers Award given by the Elders of South Africa (in the Freedom Park) for her contribution to the development of indigenous knowledge systems in South Africa since 1994
- A Nelson Mandela Distinguished Africanist Award for Leadership given by His Excellency Thabo Mbeki in 2015
- One of the Unisa Woman of the Year in 2015
- Named a Leading Educationist and honoured in the Gallery of Leadership as one of the 63 most influential people who have shaped Unisa since its inception in 1873, in a permanent exhibition in Kgorong in Unisa (Unisa History Project)
*Compiled by Sharon Farrell
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