Molefi Nathanael Oliphant was born on 6 March 1952 in Kroonstad, Free State.

He started his career as a teacher in 1975 at Lekoa Shandu High School in Sharpeville, rising to the rank of principal in 1983 at Lebohang High School in Boipatong. He was promoted to Inspector of Schools in 1993. In 1995 he was promoted to the post of District Director of Education in the Sedibeng West District of the Gauteng Department of Education.

Nowongile Cynthia Molo was born in 1949 in the former Transkei (now Eastern Cape). She completed the Junior Certificate (Form 3) at Bethel College. She has also taken courses in Political Theory, Leadership Skills and HIV and AIDS.

Molo worked for the Department of Education in the Eastern Cape, where she was mainly involved in the building and renovation of schools, and later became a project manager in the Department of Agriculture in that province.