MEC Profile

Name: Mr Fundile David

Date of Birth: 11 October 1968

Current Positions:

Mr Fundile David Gade is the Member of the Executive Council of the Eastern Cape Department of Education, a position he was appointed to on 27 May 2019.

Academic Qualifications:
• Std 10
• Diploma in education
• FDE in administration and management
• Currently doing governance and leadership diploma with Wits
• Leadership positions held
• Heading a position of being the policy head on education in the ANC Province

Positions last held /Career / Membership/Other Activities:

Mr Fundile Gade joined the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature in 2014. He was born in Dutywa. Before joining the Legislature he worked as an Educator. He is currently single with six children. He was the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Education . In 2014 he served as the whip of the ruling party ANC. He is serving and the member of the following portfolio committees: Local Government and Traditional Affairs; Transport and Education.

Support Staff:

Ms Nombuyekezo Nkwenkwezi – Ncetezo

Designation: Personal Assistant to MEC

Tel: +27(0)40 608 4305

Fax: +27(0)40 608 4247

Email: nombuyekezo.nkwenkwezi@ecdoe.gov.za

Dr Ntombizanele Naledi Mbude 

Personal

• Place of Birth: Cape Town from parents who came from Zingquthu village in the Eastern Cape Province.

Current Position

Dr Ntombizanele Naledi Mbude is currently the Head of Department at the Eastern Cape Department of Education from 01 June 2021.

Qualifications

A Science teacher by profession who holds a Diploma in Education, Higher Diploma in Education, Bachelor’s in Education as well as Post graduate Diploma in Education an Alma Mata of the University of Cape Town. At post graduate level she obtained both her Master’s and PHD from Rhodes University.

Career/Positions/Memberships/Other Activities

Dr Mbude rose through the ranks within the education sector as a Project Manager, CES, Director, Chief Director and DDG.

She has worked as a catalyst for educational transformation within the country more especially in the Eastern Cape Province where she pioneered the Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) in the year 2010.

Dr Mbude established the Language Policy Unit within the Eastern Cape Department of Education which was the first and still the only one in the country. The unit has a Transformation agenda to transform schools along language barriers to address issues of racism in schools, linguicism, and language policy mismatches. This initiative has been welcomed by the Minister of Basic Education who took from the Eastern Cape the Mother Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTBBE) project to be implemented in all provinces from 2019 as pilots, leading to the first Grade 12 Bilingual trial examinations in 2020 for the Eastern Cape.

Dr Mbude is a renowned scholar who has published articles on basic education transformation in South Africa. Dr Mbude has also authored and published Lumka sendifikile. Watch out here I come, an HIV novel for teenagers in the year 2000 and it received the Sunday Times best book for the youth review.

In 2002 she authored, Tell Someone, a novel which was made available in all 11 official languages.

Naledi has been invited to present at both national and international conferences on Language and Education, Language and Power, Language Policy and Planning and Language and disadvantage.

Dr Mbude is a proponent of the right to access education of children living with disabilities and brings her gender to this post as a woman and an activist of the rights of all children particularly vulnerable children.

Support Staff:

Ms Chantel McLean

Designation: DD:Office of the SG

Tel: +27(0)40 608 4537

Email: chantel.mclean@ecdoe.gov.za