Thousands of jubilant matriculants will be celebrating the end of 12 years of secondary schooling.
Thousands of jubilant matriculants will be celebrating the end of 12 years of secondary schooling. Parents will heave a sigh of relief — no more school runs, assisting with homework and no compulsory attendance at sports events. But amid all the jubilation, there lurks a harsh reality — the uncertainties and complexities around opportunities for further study or finding employment.
It is shocking how few learners (and parents) prepare for their futures. Too many place their faith in government support such as the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), often with disastrous results. Quality education is expensive and, to afford this, financial planning must start early in a child’s life.
The endeavour of finding or creating employment is equally complex. Here’s where the critical questions arise. How prepared are parents for post-matric study costs? And for matriculants or university graduates who plan to enter the job market, how employable are they? Do their skills or academic knowledge align with what the job market needs? Do they possess the literacies — communication, time-management and productivity skills — to function effectively in a professional environment?
Most universities and schools do not teach job literacy skills in their curricula and the majority of teachers and academic faculty have never worked in the private sector. Therefore many graduates are ill-prepared and lack an understanding of what it means to apply their knowledge innovatively and creatively within a competitive working environment. The result is that many languish unemployed.
According to Statistics South Africa’s 2024 figures, youth unemployment is at about 40%. This high rate is a huge stain on our post-1994 democracy. It raises critical questions, not only about the government and how it manages the country’s macroeconomic affairs but, more importantly, about education curricula — what is taught, how it is taught and how it aligns with social concerns, personal growth and employability.
The stubborn unemployment problem also raises questions about the competence of educators to prepare youth for a fast-changing future.
Preparing for employment, now and for the future, is critical. Author and futurist Alvin Toffler wrote in his 1970 book Future Shock, “The technology of tomorrow requires not millions of lightly lettered (wo)men, ready to work in unison at endlessly repetitious jobs, it requires not (wo)men who take orders in unblinking fashion, but (wo)men who can make critical judgments, who can weave their way through novel environments, who are quick to spot new relationships in the rapidly changing reality.”
This “changing reality” is already upon us and is bringing significant disruption to how we work and live on the planet. Hybrid learning, robotics and artificial intelligence are but a few of the new technological developments that have invaded our lives. But these represent only part of the complex landscape graduates need to navigate. They do not include increasing ecological threats due to climate change, far-reaching global conflict and pandemics, for example.
Threats to human sustainability is not a new phenomenon. A cursory glance at civilization over aeons points to the fact that it has undergone many changes and that humans are adaptable and resilient. But the effects of change can be overwhelming and cause distress.
What makes change palatable is how we understand and manage it. And if the pace of change increases, then our adaptability needs to evolve commensurately. This does not mean we have to succumb to it. It does mean, however, that we need to understand it and respond as efficiently as we can.
Therefore, the key issue remains — how effectively we are preparing our young people to live in this rapidly changing world? The truism that the youth will inherit the earth is indisputable. But will they know how to steward its limited resources and make the necessary decisions to ensure that life remains sustainable?
Building sustainability capability is a long game, played over many decades. This requires strategic investment in education and policy frameworks that engage capable skills in a meaningful and productive way. Unfortunately, South Africa has a dismal record in this regard. The ANC’s cadre deployment policy and lack of investment in capability has resulted in disastrous outcomes — failing infrastructure and economic decline.
The answers to South Africa’s educational, social, technological and economic problems are not shrouded in mystery. They are in plain sight and we are constantly reminded about the consequences of lack of implementation.
Warning bells have been ringing for a long time about the failing education system. In 2019, the International Monetary Fund’s working paper, titled Struggling to Make the Grade: A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Weak Outcomes of South Africa’s Education System, revealed significant challenges.
Five years later, little has changed. In fact, one might argue that the situation in most public schools has worsened. Consider the budget cuts and the retrenchment in 2025 of thousands of teachers in the Western Cape, for example.
In 2023-24, the budget for education, learning and culture was more than R400 billion, comprising about 20% of consolidated government expenditure. Despite the country’s relatively high spend, there isn’t a commensurate benefit and there needs to be urgent reflection on how this budget is spent.
Perhaps the teacher training colleges that were closed down need to be reinstated. Schools and universities should become hubs for innovation, where entrepreneurial thinking becomes integrated into the curricula. A good example to learn from is Delft Technical University in The Netherlands.
TU Delft is in the top 100 universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings. What makes this institution more remarkable is its close relationship with major industries, as well as its integration with Yes!Delft, one of the top innovation and entrepreneurship incubators in the world. These symbiotic relationships have spawned a thriving entrepreneurial culture which has seen the birth of hundreds of start-up companies.
So what should be done differently if we want to Make South Africa great? There needs to be a radical mindshift in the political, societal and educational sectors. Fixing education must transcend ideological boundaries and be driven by the political will to unlock resources and policies.
Civil society needs to become the custodian of educational institutions, protecting schools from vandalism, for example, and parents need to take responsibility for fee payments. Educational institutions should dispense with “ivory tower” thinking and engage more robustly with key stakeholders.
Albert Einstein, not only a brilliant theoretical physicist but also an astute commentator on human nature, once defined education as “what remains, once we have forgotten everything we learned at school”. Education is about more than learning technical skills; it’s about life. Modern industrial society’s obsession with technology at the expense of humanist values — compassion for one another and caring for the environment — has placed humanity’s sustainability at risk.
The most effective way to achieve a meaningful, productive, gratifying and sustainable life is through empowering education!
Rudi Kimmie is the director of the Aerotropolis Institute Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes in his personal capacity.
