I am an Associate Professor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education (FEDU) at the North-West University. As executive Dean I am responsible for Leadership and Management across our three campuses namely Mahikeng, Van Der Bijl and Potchefstroom. In addition the FEDU is the second largest Faculty of Education in South Africa and we have a large contingent of Distance Learning (DL) students from across the country and also from SADEC countries. The Faculty is responsible for pre-service (Preset) and in-service (Inset)Teacher training .

Prof Marthie van der Walt completed both her MEd (2006) and PhD (2008) with Prof Kobus Maree (UP) as study leader/promoter. Both quantitative and qualitative research approaches are used in her research. Her research focuses on the possible value of meta-cognition for the teaching-learning of mathematics in the 21^st century to foster self-directed learning (SDL).