A new captain at the helm of the Boland College ship

The newly appointed Principal of Boland College, Mrs Johanna Coetzee, who was born and raised in
Kakamas, has been a resident of Stellenbosch for several years and is no stranger to the greater Boland region.

After matriculating in Kakamas, she studied at Stellenbosch University where she obtained a BA degree, a Higher Diploma in Education, as well as a BEd degree. She also holds a Total Quality Management qualification from Unisa which was awarded her cum laude.

Being a great supporter of life-long learning, Mrs Coetzee also obtained a qualification in Human Resource Management in 2015 and a qualification in Basic Financial Management in 2017, both from the University of Cape Town. These qualifications were awarded her cum laude by UCT.

Her professional career includes being a teacher at Labori High School in Paarl, during which time she received merit awards from the Department of Education. She also taught at Bloemhof Girls’ High School in Stellenbosch, where she obtained two further merit awards from the Department of Education. School teaching was traded for college teaching when she joined Boland College (then Stellenbosch College) in 1993 as a lecturer and later senior lecturer. There she received the Principal’s award while being a national examiner and national moderator.

A further career move came when she was appointed as Quality Manager for the newly merged Boland College in 2002, where she assisted the Executive Committee to grow the institution to what it is today. This period included being acting Campus Manager in Strand during a transitional phase of the institution. She has been Vice-Principal: Corporate Services of Boland College since August 2012, overseeing the respective departments of Human Resource Management, Residences, Facilities and Infrastructure Management, General Administration, Student Administration and Information
Technology (IT).

Mrs Coetzee is also a champion for the preservation of our natural resources and she has launched the College Green Initiative in 2013. She still heads the Green Committee and valuable Recycle-Reduce-Re-use initiatives were introduced and are still in progress.

Mrs Coetzee had the following to say after being appointed as Principal of Boland College from 1 August 2018: “I look forward to the challenges of steering Boland College in an era of growing artificial intelligence in contrast to natural intelligence characteristics of human beings. My wish is to create a transformative environment conducive to finding the perfect balance between AI and NI for staff and students to the advantage of our college within the TVET sector.”

We congratulate Mrs Coetzee on her appointment and wish her all the best at the helm of the Boland College ship.