Carole  is currently  Extraordinary Professor in Language Education at the University of the Western Cape. She has a PhD in Children’s literacy development in African multilingual settings from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany. Her experience in literacy teaching stretches from birth onwards; she researches and develops holistic literacy learning approaches to contribute towards transforming early childhood pedagogy. Her aim is to help enable equitable and meaningful learning opportunities in African settings for all young children and teachers.  Since 2012, Carole has directed Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA), a non-government multilingual language and literacy organisation, where, between 1992 and 2011, she initiated and co-ordinated  the project’s early literacy research and development work.  During these years she wrote and facilitated the writing and translation of several children’s books and videos about early literacy learning, led initiatives including a 6 year children’s biliteracy teaching and learning project in Cape Town, PRAESA’s Free Reading in Schools Project and Culture of Reading Project. She also helped initiate and led the African Union supported Stories Across Africa Project, collaborating with literacy and literary  activists in North, West, Central, East and Southern Africa to develop a common collections of stories for children in their own languages. Carole has also collaborated with colleagues at the University of Reading on the TELL Project, which were later adapted and used in 2012 when, with PRAESA colleagues, she co-initiated the Nal’ibali National Reading for Enjoyment Campaign and led its first four years. PRAESA was awarded the IBBY Asahi Award for Reading Promotion in 2014, and the Swedish government's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2015 for its 20 years of work in reading promotion and children’s literature development in South Africa.She has served on South African, African and International committees, including IBBY SA, PEN SA, the SA Minister of Education’s reading advisory committee, the NECT National Reading Coalition Research Committee, the SA PIRLS advisory board and Linguapax Africa. Most recently she worked on the IBBY International Committee from 2016-2020, serving as committee vice-president from 2018-20. 

In 2022-2023 she is a part time  visitor at Hamburg University’s Faculty of Education research center Literacy in Diversity Settings and from October  2022 untill October 2023 will be fellow at the New Institute in Hamburg.