Our Team

LECTURER: LIFE SCIENCES

Cosette Von Sorgenfrei Toerien lectures the Life Sciences programmes offered by AKAD+. She matriculated from Helpmekaar Meisies Hoërskool in 1976 and attended the South African Women’s Army College in George after school. She completed her BSc, BSc Hons (Botany) and PGED at RAU and holds a BSc Hons in Microbiology (UNISA). She also joined SAA as a Cabin Crew Member (First class international) for 10 years before she started lecturing at TWR and UJ. Cosette lectured from 2005 to 2017 in various modules including Microbiology, Biotechnology, Cosmetic Sciences and Epidemiology. Since 2015 she was appointed to manage the UJ Science Centre at Soweto and this included the UJ Science Bridge where students could rewrite matric subjects with SACAI. She has been teaching the Life Science component and was appointed as marker with SACAI in 2017. She has been active in promoting Sciences and managed various outreach projects related to the Science Week and Science Centre.

Cosette loves working with people and especially students and learners interested in Life Sciences.  She has an active and vibrant teaching style sharing her passion for Sciences and is a devoted teacher.

In 2016 and 2017 Ms Toerien, taught the Life Sciences at the Matric rewrite programme and had excellent results. Her students improved their previous matric results with an average of a remarkable 47% per student in 2017 and 14% per student in 2018.

Some of her other accomplishments include:

Cosette has been instrumental in the establishment of the Akad+ rewrite centre and loves to uplift students. She is a very caring and trustworthy colleague and enjoys spending time with her family. She reads and when she has time, traveling all over fills her days.