Growing up in Soweto as one of six siblings, Mmutle Lentle was always aware of the importance of education. But with Bantu education in the old South Africa, it was hard to get a leg up, he says, deadpan. Given his family’s limited financial resources and repeated ministerial refusals to consent to his studying at universities reserved for other race groups, he enrolled at Vista University’s Soweto campus, which is today the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg.

He graduated from Vista with a B.Com in Management Accounting and Accounting. He says his role models were those who stood up to the system, and he pays tribute to the inspiration provided by teachers: “Teaching was still a respectable profession then,” he says ruefully.