The United Nations’ 8th International Day of Women and Girls in Science is being commemorated on 11 February.
It is a day Ntebogeng Mokgalaka-Fleischmann values and respects. She knows only too well how important it is to create awareness of science careers and celebrate women’s contribution to the discipline. Mokgalaka-Fleischmann will never forget when she stood up on stage in 2005 to graduate with a DTech in chemistry. She was the only woman graduating with a doctorate in that ceremony at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), an achievement made even more meaningful because she had initially failed matric maths, which had dashed her original career plans. Today she is a full professor – and has been rated C2, an established researcher, at the National Research Foundation. She has added an MBA in Education Management to her string of degrees, and, since July 2022, is Director of the Mamelodi campus at the University of Pretoria (UP).
“The fourth industrial revolution is about innovation. It’s about designing new things, or doing things differently and improving service delivery. That requires you to know how to code, to know mathematics, to have critical thinking skills, so we need women and girls in these challenging sciences. More girls in science is not only about training in the discipline, but about training people who are going to have the skills to contribute towards building the economy and also to make sure we have a just society – access to clean water, clean air, access to health facilities, basic human rights but also from the lens of women and girls.”
