Prof Mushonga has been appointed to the 16th Council of the National University of Lesotho (NUL) for a term of three years, from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2029. The appointment was confirmed in writing by the King's Senior Private Secretary, who noted that His Majesty had accepted Prof Mushonga's appointment "after consultation with the Council and Senate, in terms of Section 6(b)(vii) of the National University of Lesotho Act, 1992 (as amended)." The letter added: "We look forward to your valued contribution to the stewardship and advancement of the university."
The inauguration ceremony took place at NUL's Roma Campus on 1 July 2026. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Prof Mushonga was unable to attend in person and was inaugurated virtually via Zoom.
A recognition rooted in history
The appointment is not incidental. Under NUL Order 19 of 1992, Prof Mushonga was selected as one of only four Council members appointed on the basis of ‘special competence in university education elsewhere, outside Lesotho.’ The appointment also explicitly recognises his outstanding long service to NUL and to Lesotho, dating back to his employment at the university in 2004.
Before joining the University of the Free State in March 2019, Prof Mushonga spent nearly fifteen years teaching and serving at NUL, having previously taught at the University of Zimbabwe from 1992 to 2004. During his time at NUL, he held several academic, administrative, and community roles – including Head of Department, Senate member, Senate representative on NUL’s Statutes Committee, Chairperson of the Faculty Research and Conference Committee, and member of the Lesotho University Teachers and Researchers Union.
For Prof Mushonga, the appointment carries significance that is at once professional, intellectual, and deeply personal.
"Professionally, socially, and intellectually, this appointment completes my knighting as a proud child of Lesotho and its de facto intellectual ambassador," he says. "It is a testament to my impactful and faithful service to NUL and Lesotho, which began on 6 July 2004."
It was at NUL and in Lesotho that his academic career and intellectual identity took root. "It was there that my academic career and intellectual growth deepened, including that of my family," he reflects. "Yet, when I moved to South Africa in 2019, the University of the Free State gave me more space and resources to grow further, and in particular to run with the decolonial project, without which I would not be where and who I am today."
He sees the appointment not as an arrival, but as an opportunity to give back. "As a proud child of two nations and two universities, I wish to give back – intellectually and otherwise – the best in me, to position NUL and the University of the Free State as leading institutions in the re-education, re-humanisation, and re-worlding of the world from Africa and the Global South."
As a member of NUL's supreme governing body, Prof Mushonga's responsibilities are significant. Under Section 10(2-3) of NUL Order 19 of 1992, Council members are mandated to help manage and control NUL's affairs, concerns, and property. They are required to act with honesty and good faith, exercise independent judgment, uphold fiduciary and oversight duties with diligence and care, and guide the university's governance, administration, and strategic direction.
In short, it is the kind of appointment that places a scholar at the centre of institutional decision-making – not as an observer, but as a steward.
A scholar who thinks across boundaries
Prof Mushonga's scholarship is defined by a refusal to be contained. A decolonial scholar and activist, he works across the humanities and social sciences within the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality framework, deliberately moving beyond disciplinary boundaries. His work is driven by a single, animating question – ‘what are the things we cannot know because of what we already know?’
He is the immediate past programme director for Africa Studies at the University of the Free State, where he also served on the Senate's Decolonisation Engagement Group. He currently serves as Global Academic Director of the Decolonial International Network (DIN) and, in 2023, launched DIN's Lesotho chapter, based at NUL. This chapter now gives his NUL Council appointment an additional dimension of continuity and purpose.
For the University of the Free State, Prof Mushonga's appointment reflects the institution's growing contribution to higher education governance and intellectual leadership across the African continent – a dimension of its commitment to
responsible societal futures that extends well beyond its own campuses.