Professor Rouaan Maarman’s personal and academic journey has been marked by powerful full-circle moments - now culminating in his delivery of the opening inaugural lecture of the year at the University of the Western Cape. Inaugural lectures are a significant milestone in the University’s academic life, held to celebrate the formal appointment of an academic to full professorship.

Prof Maarman’s journey started at UWC in 1990 as an undergraduate student, and he is currently the Deputy Dean for Research in the Faculty of Education. His contributions extend far beyond UWC lecture halls — they extend to his research and the impact he has made in the schooling system. 

Born in Somerset East in the Eastern Cape, Prof Maarman is the eldest of six children. Both of his parents were teachers, and he regards his father not only as his best friend but also as his mentor and role model. After completing his studies, Prof Maarman fulfilled a long-held dream when he returned home to teach alongside his father at the very primary school he had attended as a child.

By then, his father had become the school’s principal and continued to champion academic excellence - both in the classroom and within their family.

“I remember when I was very young, I must have been ten years old, when my dad told me that if I wanted to become a teacher, I must have a Master's Degree. At the time, I obviously didn’t know what that was,” said Prof Maarman.

Prof Rouaan Maarman will present his Inaugural Lecture on 4 August 2025. Image: Shelley Christians/UWC

In high school, he discovered that many of his teachers had completed their Master’s degrees - an inspiration that fuelled his own ambition to pursue postgraduate studies. Today, he encourages the same academic aspiration in his children. His daughter is currently a student at UWC, though not following directly in his footsteps as an educator.

“Two of my siblings are nurses, the others are all teachers. My children know that they come from a generation of teachers – so it’s in our blood,” he said.

He also credits being married to a teacher with keeping him grounded in both the boardroom and the classroom. His wife, a dedicated educator who has served the profession for over 30 years, is his most trusted sounding board when reflecting on educational matters.

Maarman also has many passions outside of academia. As a student he received his Under-19 Western Province colours in Long Jump in 1991 and Triple Jump in 1992. He also played rugby for the University, alongside current UWC rugby coach Paul Treu, and he remains passionate about sporting codes and maintains a healthy lifestyle. In fact, he still fits into the Western Province tracksuit he wore 34 years ago. “Kevin Kiewits, who’s now the President of Western Province rugby, was our chairperson, he was our part-time coach, he was our driver…. and we spent a lot of time with Kevin during those years, and we were serious about our athletics.”

He likes to reminisce about the vibrant sporting clubs at UWC in the 90s and the talent that took to the field back then. But with it comes the realisation that many could not fulfil their dreams because of apartheid racial classifications. Prof Maarman was an anti-apartheid activist when he first arrived at UWC, and on campus. 

“I belonged to the ANC. At the high school level, my parents were not happy, of course. You are a child. You're exposing yourself to the police and stuff like that. But at UWC, you had to make those choices for yourself,” he said. He vividly remembers how UWC was at the centre of historic moments that shifted the country towards democracy. In 1990 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, other political prisoners were released from Robben Island. Prof Maarman was among the students who greeted them at Cape Town harbour. 

“As they got off the boat, we stood there and held their hands and spent afternoons and evenings with our heroes, welcoming them back from Robben Island - what a privilege!” 

Celebrated Umkhonto we Sizwe activist, academic, and UWC alumnus, Cecil Esau, was one of those activists he met at the harbour and helped usher back onto the UWC campus. Prof Maarman said he was in awe. 

“Well, we fetched him from the harbour. And then he came back and stayed with us in the hostel…the same hostel named after him a few years before he was released.” 

They stayed up all night speaking to Esau, a man who didn’t accept the status quo, and it, in part, inspired Prof Maarman’s academic outputs as well. 

In summation of his research area in education, Maarman chose the topic of the lifeworthiness of education as the focus of his inaugural lecture. He has, throughout his academic career, questioned the political influence in basic and higher education since the dawn of democracy. 

“I'm questioning the life worthiness of basic education and, in particular the CAPS curriculum that we use in our schools. And I feel that the curriculum has life-worthy challenges. For example, what are the realities of the world? The realities of our high school children in South Africa. We have a high teenage pregnancy rate. They leave school during their high school years by the thousands.

They know very little to nothing about basic life skills, and then they’re out of the system. What are we teaching them, those real-life knowledge and skills needed to succeed as young adults?” 

He is critical of the current basic education outcomes because he believes they do not fulfil that initial democratic promise, and progress is too slow. 

“We were promised a people's framework for education back then, and what happened to people's education in South Africa, because that's what everybody sold to us as youngsters and we were looking forward to it and it didn't materialise…. actually we are dumbing down our youth just like the apartheid system did and if you look at the output in the statistics of our matriculants, it's a bad picture to look at every year,” said Prof Maarman, who remains optimistic about the possibilities in basic and higher education and proudly boasts that it is still a privilege to be an educator. 

“In applying for the full professorship, I went through my CV…and I could count that I have had the privilege to teach more than 5000 people who all then went on to teach in classrooms and lecture halls around the world. Isn’t that just incredible?”

An inaugural lecture is both a celebration of scholarly achievement and a platform for sharing research insights, teaching philosophy, and a vision for the future. And as is the case with Prof Maarman, an inaugural lecture is also a way to connect a researcher’s work to the strategic mission of the University.

Prof Maarman already has strong connections to UWC, and his inaugural lecture is another strand that weaves him into the mission, values and history of the University. But it is not the end of the journey.

He believes that teachers must teach, and at university, this is no different for him.

“I still avail myself to teach our undergrads - the first years. Because I feel professors should teach first years, I feel that's a personal thing for me. When children come out of our mostly poor communities for the first time to university, they must be exposed to professors. Professors are supposed to emulate achievement, excellence, insight and service. All those things they must model for the students; the students must see it.”