“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.”

In a week that Daily Development is focusing on education and development, the world is remembering Maya Angelou, the poet and writer whose own formal education stopped at high school but who went on to be awarded more than 30 honorary degrees. After the struggle of her early life she overcame adversity and became a Professor of American Studies, whose work is studied in schools and universities worldwide.

At his inauguration in 1994, President Nelson Mandela read out one of Maya Angelou’s most well-known poems, Still I Rise, which includes the following lines:

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.