Hennie van der Mescht is Emeritus Professor of Rhodes University, South Africa, where he continues to work in the fields of Educational Leadership and English Teaching.

Professor van der Mescht taught English at senior school level for 25 years, ending his school teaching career as Principal of Kimberley Boys’ High School, whereafter he joined the Faculty of Education at Rhodes University in the early 1990s. Hennie taught in the English ‘Home Language’ Method course in the Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) programme for many years as well as founding programmes in Educational Leadership and Management.

He has graduated over 60 Master’s students and 13 PhDs, and is still supervising and teaching in a part-time capacity.

Professor van der Mescht’s fields of interest are phenomenology as a research approach, critical realism and cultural-historical activity theory, mostly applied to the field of educational leadership.
Since retirement, Henie has increasingly resuscitated and re-explored his passion for music recording and audio production, and his love of the guitar.

Professor van der Mescht served as Guest Editor (2004 - 2013) and was responsible for the compilation of papers appearing in the 2008 special edition, Phenomenology in Education (see the 'Scheduled Themes' section).