Ms Kgadi Mathabathe from the Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans, in the category of Education.

After Ms Mathabathe had completed Grade 12 in an under-resourced high school in Hammanskraal, a rural area north of Pretoria, she had to attend college for an additional year to improve her marks in mathematics and science. Her experiences as a science learner taught her that if students from disadvantaged backgrounds could access quality primary and secondary education, it would be easier for them to access tertiary education.

She knew then that she wanted to become a science teacher who could make an abstract learning area accessible to learners, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that she would be afforded the opportunity to train pre and in-service teachers so early on in her career. This is what she does in her role as a lecturer in Science Education at the University of Pretoria. Ms Mathabathe, who is just 32, also publishes articles on how to improve science education in South Africa and she supervises postgraduate research in education.

The third-year undergraduate practical course in Organic Chemistry had been purely recipe-based until 2012. With a view to the 2013 student intake, Ms Mathabathe was invited by the lecturers of the course to give educational input towards creating an entirely new practical course, based on an inquiry approach. Her PhD project was thus framed as part of a bigger project for revamping third-year Organic Chemistry laboratory training (experiments). The inquiry-based industrial project is set in a simulated industrial context appropriate to the expectations of new graduates.

The introduction of a metacognitive approach by way of reflective learning strategy questionnaires (her research focus area) is aimed at encouraging students to practise their metacognitive abilities of monitoring and regulation while conducting experiments in the laboratory.

The project not only equips students with technical skills, but also focuses on areas such as the development of metacognition and the establishment of a professional identity.

Through her research she hopes to highlight the role that senior undergraduate chemistry laboratory training can play in the development of metacognitive abilities necessary for selfregulated learning.  Last year she won a Canon Collins Ros Moger/Terry Furlong Scholarship to do a doctorate in science education.

She is focusing on metacognitive activity among science students with the aim of informing the teaching and learning of chemistry in South Africa. She is regularly invited by organisations, such as the Rural Education Access Programme, to motivate young people, and with financial independence has come the added opportunity to give financial assistance to other young people with their studies.

“My life bears testimony to the fact that one does not have to come from a privileged background to succeed in life, but that through education anyone, irrespective of colour or background, can succeed in life,” said Ms Mathabathe.