Shirley Lloyd describes herself as an educator, a public servant, an activist and a social entrepreneur. She believes in social justice and views her work in education and training, and particularly related to the NQF and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) as part of fulfilling her life’s work.
She is very recently retired from the position of Director of the NQF Directorate in DHET, which was a position she valued and enjoyed. She holds a PhD and the title of her thesis is “Recognition of Prior Learning: A Social Entrepreneurial Praxis”. She has been a teacher, a lecturer, an inspector of education, a principal of 2 TVET Colleges, a senior manager in a SETA, and worked in national government departments. She was a Board member of SAQA for over 9 years, and has also worked at SAQA in the international relations directorate. She has worked in many countries, assisting them to develop their own NQFS and RPL policies and processes. She has published and written articles and papers about NQF development; RPL; Quality Assurance and Work and Learning. She currently supervises Master’s and Doctoral students and she will now, since retiring, have more time to supervise more students, write and publish papers, and pursue her academic career in the higher education space. She believes that it is most important to remain current and active in one’s field of study, and is energised by applying the principles of Ubuntu, Batho Pele and Thuma Mina.