A former Cape Town high school teacher has been selected as the new head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.
|||Cape Town - A former Livingstone High School teacher, who describes himself as an “educationalist by nature” has been selected as the new head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.
David Wylde, the chairman of the academy’s board of trustees, announced on Monday that after an international search Melvin King, 50, had been appointed as the school’s new head.
He will take up his position at the school, in Henley on Klip near Meyerton, south of Joburg, next year after the retirement of Anne van Zyl.
The father of two and “a born and bred Capetonian” is the head of the Bridge House Preparatory School in Franschhoek.
He said the selection process had included interviews in South Africa before shortlisted candidates went to New York where they also met Winfrey. “It was a pretty rigorous experience,” he said.
King holds a social science degree and teaching diploma from UCT and a diploma in leadership development from the Wits Graduate School of Business.
He started teaching at Livingstone High School in 1986.
“I sat at the feet of masters there. I learnt so much from my teaching experience at the school.”
After 15 years at Livingstone, King became the founding academic head at Christel House in Ottery.
He has also been a life skills facilitator at the South African Institute of Race Relations, was elected as the national chairman of the Independent Schools Association of South Africa last year, has been the director of the Franschhoek Wine Valley and Tourism Association and is the deputy chairman of the Franschhoek Schools Transformation Project and the Franschhoek Valley Charter Trust.
Asked what the main contributions that he wanted to make to the academy were, he said: “I believe in a shared vision approach. I want to understand what people value within the school and enhance that.”
King said Van Zyl and the board had restored the school’s image after bad publicity in the past, adding that no school was perfect and other schools faced the same issues as the academy.
He said one of his main responsibilities would be to see to it that the girls fulfilled their academic abilities but also to ensure that leadership skills were instilled in them.
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus