Hlonipha Mokoena

"Can I touch your hair? Where are you from? I cannot do anything with your hair unless I texturise it!"

"We don’t have anything to do with it, it’s dramatic, it doesn’t ‘flow"

"People don’t know how much money is made in telling black women that they need straight hair"

"If black people are not trained to care for their hair, then who?"

"We should want to cultivate our minds and intellect because we think that it makes us better human beings, especially that it enhances our ethical sensibility."

"An education that is devoid of ethics is empty and meaningless and will produce smart but reckless human beings."

"The benefits to society of having an intelligent and articulate citizenry are priceless; they cannot be measured in terms of GDP per capita or literacy rates or productivity"

"We need to start the conversation at primary school level. At the core of an academic mind is curiosity, and curiosity cannot be taught - it can only be nurtured."

"Children are naturally curious and I would argue that our education system destroys this curiosity and replaces it with anxiety about performance"

"Learning should be a joyous experience."