Winner

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, was named the winner of the inaugural Africa Education Medal, launched by T4 Education and HP in collaboration with Intel and Microsoft in 2022.

Growing up in rural and township South Africa during Apartheid, she became the first black female South African to achieve a PhD in Mathematics Education in 2002 and she is determined not to be the last. In the two decades since she has published more than 80 research papers and five edited volumes that continue to shape mathematics education in classrooms across Africa and far beyond. Her research focuses on language practices in multilingual mathematics classrooms and has proved influential in post-colonial Africa and post-Apartheid South Africa in particular.