Caroline van Niekerk is a full Professor of Music Education at the University of Pretoria. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Music and English as well as a teacher's diploma from the University of Stellenbosch. After obtaining two licentiates from the University of South Africa, one in School Music and one in the Theory of Music, she completed her postgraduate studies (M.Mus and PhD) at the University of the Witwatersrand. In addition she holds a variety of qualifications in fields as diverse as translating, editing, television presentation, leadership and negotiating skills. She returned to the University of Pretoria at the beginning of 1996 from her previous post as Director in the South African national Department of Education. Prior to the five years she spent in national government she lectured at a variety of universities, colleges of education and the Pretoria Technikon. She is the author and editor of many publications and has supervised 31 doctoral and 20 Masters' theses to date. She examines nationally and internationally and has been fortunate to have travelled extensively and spoken at conferences over the last nearly twenty years throughout Africa, Europe, the East, the UK, US and Australia. From 1992-1996 she was the elected member for the African continent of the ISME (International Society for Music Education) Board of Directors. As Vice-Chair of the Organising Committee for ISME '98, the biennial world conference held in Pretoria, she was responsible for all the arrangements for the Conference programme, widely acclaimed as one of the best ever. In 2000/2001 she was the first President of the Pan-African Society for Music Education, founded in Harare, Zimbabwe in August 2000, and was re-elected as Secretary General of the Society for the biennium 2001-2003.