She graduated with a teaching diploma from the Bellville Training College, with her first posting as a teacher at Rocklands High School in Mitchell's Plain, Cape Town.
[7] In 2009, following the landslide victory of the ruling African National Congress in the general election, Jenkins was announced as the party's nominee for Premier of the Northern Cape, in succession to Dipuo Peters.
[12] Premier Jenkins, following a lengthy hospital stay, made a surprise first public appearance at the Northern Cape ANC elective conference in Upington on 7 June 2012.
"[14] On April 2, 2013, Hazel Jenkins officially stepped down from the post of Premier of the Northern Cape and was to be succeeded by Sylvia Lucas, the Provincial Minister for Environmental Affairs.
A vote in the Northern Cape legislature on 30 April 2013, in which opposition parties COPE and the Democratic Alliance took part, failed to achieve the required two thirds support for the motion to be carried.