Mr Membathisi Mdladlana

Membathisi Mphumzi Shepherd Mdladlana was born in Keiskammahoek in the Eastern Cape, on 12 May 1952. He completed a primary teachers course at Lovedale College. Later, from 1990 to 1993, he obtained a primary teachers certificate and diploma from the Good Hope College in Cape Town, and in 1997 he complemented it with a BA degree, majoring in education and Xhosa, from Unisa.

He started working as a teacher in 1972 at the Vukukhanye Primary School in Gugulethu, where he later became deputy principal. From 1982 to 1994 he was the principal of the Andile Primary School in New Crossroads, Cape Town. He has a long history in the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape and in national education leadership roles, such as being chairperson and later national president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU).

In 1994 he joined the new government and served on the education portfolio committee, of which he later became the deputy chairperson, and on the home affairs portfolio committee, until he became the minister of labour in 1998. He served in this position for twelve years until 2010.