_The cleaner who became a professor at the same university_
By Emily Setona
QWAQWA — At 19, Puseletso Mofokeng’s job was to scrub the floors and wash the glassware in the Chemistry laboratories at the University of the Free State’s QwaQwa campus.
Today, she returns to those same laboratories as Associate Professor — and as Director of the Centre for Global Change.
It is a journey that wound through farm fields, a general dealer’s kitchen, an armed robbery with three guns to her head, and a song she can never forget.
Mofokeng’s story, recently highlighted by the Free State Provincial Government, is not just about academic success. It is about refusing to let where you start dictate where you finish.
Her lowest point came on 29 November 1998. Working as a cleaner, cook and cashier at a store, she found herself staring down death.
Armed robbers stormed the shop, grabbing cash and expensive alcohol before turning their guns on her.
“I had three guns pointed to my head. I was shouted at and struck on the head with a gun. I have never pleaded with another human being the way I did that evening,” Mofokeng recalls.
To this day, she remembers the song playing on the radio that night — _Mohla ke Tsamayang_ by Spokes H.
Traumatised, she resigned and went looking for any work that would give her a future.
In March 1999, that door opened. Then known as UNIQWA, the QwaQwa campus of UFS advertised a Research Assistant post. Mofokeng applied.
She was hired — but not to lecture or research. At least, not at first.
“I joined UNIQWA in 1999 at the age of 19. Initially, a significant part of my work involved cleaning the Chemistry laboratories, washing the glassware and apparatus used by postgraduate students and staff in the Department of Chemistry,” she says.
She took the work seriously. And within months, something shifted.
“Within only a few months, something important happened. My responsibilities gradually evolved from cleaning alone to a combination of cleaning and assisting with experimental laboratory work,” she says.
That small change — from cleaning beakers to helping with experiments — lit a fuse.Curiosity turned to ambition. Watching scientists at work every day, Mofokeng decided she wanted to become one.
She enrolled to study. In April 2011, she graduated with a Master of Science in Polymer Science. From there, she never looked back, climbing the academic ladder to become an Associate Professor and a leader in the Department of Chemistry.
*FULL CIRCLE*
Before all of this, there was farm work. There was failing to raise R750 to attend a computer college. There was cooking and cleaning at a general dealer to survive.
None of it, she says, looked like the start of a professorship.
“I worked on a farm because I could not afford R750 to attend a computer college. I cooked, cleaned and worked as a cashier at a general dealer. Later, I entered a university and cleaned laboratories. At none of those stages could I have confidently predicted that I would one day become a professor, let alone Director of a research centre.”
Her appointment as Director of the Centre for Global Change brought it all into focus.
“My appointment as Director of the Centre for Global Change is deeply meaningful to me, both personally and professionally,” she says.
“I could never have imagined then that the same institution where I initially cleaned laboratories would one day entrust me with leadership responsibilities in the Department of Chemistry and, ultimately, the leadership of one of its research centres.”
For young people in QwaQwa and across the Free State who feel trapped by circumstance, Mofokeng has a simple, hard-won message:
“My message to young people is simple: do not allow where you start to determine where you believe you can finish,” she says.
“Your first opportunity may not resemble your dream. Take it seriously anyway. Learn from it, observe, work hard and remain open to possibilities.”
