Mandla Stanley Makhanya

NOMINATION COMMITTEE MEMBER: 2021 -2024

Former Principal and Vice Chancellor of UNISA, Former ICDE President and Board Member

Professor Mandla Stanley Makhanya was appointed Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa on 1 January 2011 and is a prominent proponent of higher education leadership and advocacy. He has served for ten years in this capacity and is currently doing the handover to the new Vice Chancellor. Prof Makhanya is past President of the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE) and has served as a Treasurer of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) for the last two terms. Professor Makhanya is currently the President of the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL) – International Body. As such he has a thorough knowledge of higher education trends in both the developing and developmental higher education contexts.

The University of South Africa is a dedicated comprehensive distance education institution which enrolls over one-third of South African students of all ages. Its student profile is reflective of the diversity of South Africa and Africa’s population and as such, Unisa is keenly aware of the hopes, fears and aspirations of those whom it serves, especially in regard to 4IR and their opportunities for future employment and prospects.

Unisa has a large humanities and human sciences component of which it is extremely proud and which it will continue to develop alongside its commitment to the accelerated development of its Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics. Unisa is firmly of the view that the humanities and the sciences are mutually inclusive and that the one will not achieve its full potential without the other. Unisa believes that it is indeed, “about people.” As an internationally acknowledged leader and scholar in distance education and a sociologist by training Prof Makhanya is well qualified to justify and advance this view.

Prior to ascending to the position of Principal and Vice Chancellor at the University of South Africa, Professor Makhanya served as a Pro Vice Chancellor at the same university for a period of three years. This was preceded by a period of five years as a Dean of the Faculty of Arts/Humanities and Social Sciences. He then served as an Executive Dean of Human Sciences for three years.

Professor Makhanya is a Deputy Chairperson of the South African National Commission for UNESCO and Chairperson of the Culture Sector of the South African National Commission for UNESCO. He has also been a member of the National Committee of the Memory of the World (MoW). In the 1990s he served in various leadership roles in the South African Sociological Association, including as its Deputy President in 1998, for a period of two years. He continues to be a member of the South African Sociological Association (SASA) and the International Association of Sociology (ISA). Prof Makhanya is on the advisory board of JRODel (Journal of Research in Open, Distance and e-Learning).

His outstanding work in open, distance and flexible learning has been recognized worldwide and he has been awarded honorary PhDs by two universities (one in Canada and one in the United States of America).