Prof Allison Drew

Distinguished Visiting Professor (DVP)
Name: Allison Drew
CERT Staff, Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Distinguished Visiting Professors​, Faculty of Education  Staff Members

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About Prof Allison Drew

Professor Allison Drew has been appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor at CERT. Her work forms part of a rare archive on South African history, its primary sources within the African Studies Library and Collections largely destroyed by the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) fire of 18 April 2021. Drew’s contribution to this decolonial education archive is phenomenal, unique and irreplaceable. Drew worked closely with the late Neville Alexander as a researcher and scholar since the 1960s. Her work on the intellectual history of the South African Left is widely recognised by public intellectuals, and South African and international historians. The well-known and respected ‘Allison Drew Collection’ volumes on South African History Online (SAHO) have contributed significantly to civil society’s understanding of the public education struggle, and in particular regarding understanding the complexities and international context of the intellectual and education work of Neville Alexander. Her public profile as a noted historian on South Africa can be found at the following link which is a substantial and unique archive on the connection between national liberation struggles and political organisations and education in South Africa. https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/allison-drew-collection. Drew’s scholarship contribution is in her placing of a small cohort of South Africa’s radical intellectual Left within a global context of radical education, working with a vast and diverse archive of little-known primary sources such as in Moscow.