Mother of three, Ms Mbali Jiyane, graduated with a master of arts in linguistics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal for her research that analysed narrations produced by isiZulu speaking children from KwaZulu-Natal using the Narrative Scoring Schema (NSS).

She focused on language and culture specific narrative text structure elements while investigating whether the children’s storytelling was based on a ‘Canonical’ Narrative Text Structure, which is taught at school or on a Southern African Narrative Text Structure (SANTS). It is akin to the text structure underlying traditional Southern African Folktales.