SA’s future depends on a 30-year commitment to education

I’ve written before about the values that drew me away from South Africa to Israel, about longing for a society where crime doesn’t lock us inside our homes, kids can play outside without fear, and taxes get used to better the cities and country. Yet those same values – safety, dignity, opportunity – are precisely what South Africa must reclaim before it loses its future entirely. The silent crisis of our age is no longer economic or political; it’s educational. This crisis isn’t happening despite democracy, it’s unfolding because we never treated education as the foundation for everything else.

Nearly four decades after apartheid, South Africa still educates a generation that cannot read fluently or do basic multiplication. We pour more than 6% of our gross domestic product (GDP) into public education, more than many OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, yet 81% of Grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning, and fewer than 2% of matriculants earn a distinction in mathematics. These aren’t abstract statistics. They are the tangible cracks in our foundation: an entire generation left behind, unemployed, alienated, and disillusioned.

I see the consequences everywhere: youths dropping out before Grade 10, joining the ranks of the unemployed masses; universities overwhelmed by students unprepared for critical thinking or academic rigour; entrepreneurs unable to find qualified staff for digital start-ups. By neglecting education, we’ve created a dysfunctional economy, a fractured society, and a dangerous cycle of dependency and despair. If South Africa is to rise again, education must become our decades-long national project, one that transcends election cycles and political buzzwords.

This isn’t wishful thinking. Nations that have put education at the centre of their national development – South Korea, Finland, Singapore, and Israel – transformed themselves over a generation. Consider South Korea. In the 1950s, it was a war-torn, impoverished nation with high illiteracy. It made education its moral and strategic project. Thirty years later, it had become a global industrial powerhouse. Today, it ranks among the highest in tertiary graduation rates and hosts leading global brands like Samsung and Hyundai. Export revenue, research and development investment, and GDP soared in tandem with human capital.

Israel, too, offers a blueprint close to home. In 1948, the country was a patchwork of immigrants and desert towns, with limited natural resources and existential threats. Yet leaders made a strategic gamble on education. They built universities, prioritised technical skills, and linked military service to innovation. Decades later, Israel is a juggernaut in cybertechnology, biotechnology, and renewable agriculture. Its global exports and start-up success stem from a foundation laid in classrooms and military training centres. Today, more than 45% of Israelis hold tertiary degrees, and GDP per capita has surged above $55 000 (R980 540).

South Africa possesses the same basic raw materials – young blood, linguistic diversity, and a hard-won sense of justice. Yet our national system fails to convert potential into performance. While we spend as much as these successful nations, our outcomes remain sub-par. Why?

Because funding alone is not enough. Without structural transformation, clear strategy, and unwavering political will, money merely flows into a broken bucket.

We need a 30‑year national education blueprint—one that begins with radical early childhood development. Brain and language development from birth to age 6 is well‑documented as the most powerful predictor of later achievement. In Finland and Israel, universal preschool is the norm, not a privilege. In Israel residential neighborhoods, such as in Yavne, are built around pre-schools, schools and parks with well maintained playgrounds. In contrast, fewer than 3 in 10 South African children receive adequate early learning. If we launched a national preschool mandate today, we would give a generation its first real chance.

Next, we have to overhaul teacher standards. South Korea, Finland, and Singapore accept only the top third of high school graduates into teacher training. These teachers are treated as professionals, not caregivers, and receive rigorous education, mentoring, and ongoing evaluation. In South Africa, the quality of instruction varies wildly—even in subject knowledge. In a national assessment, only 32 percent of Grade 6 math teachers solved the test they were asking of their students. Transforming teaching into a respected profession means raising entry requirements, offering ongoing support, and linking continued pay to performance—while also acknowledging the challenging environments teachers often face.

But quality teaching alone is not enough. The curriculum must reflect the needs of a modern economy. South Korea introduced technical high schools early, linked to electronics and manufacturing. Israel’s school system includes vocational tracks that feed directly into high‑tech sectors. In South Africa, technical and vocational education remains underutilized, stigmatized, and underfunded. We must revitalize TVET colleges, link curricula to real workplace demands, and make vocational paths as respected as academic ones.

We also need safe, functional infrastructure. Thousands of South African schools lack even basic toilets, libraries, or running water. The digital divide is real—rural learners are locked out of a knowledge economy that urban children access through laptops and e‑learning platforms. Estonia digitized all schools, India launched nationwide virtual schooling, and Israel turned its classrooms digital in the COVID-era. South Africa must treat school infrastructure and connectivity as national priorities—infrastructure like roads, but measured in literacy and opportunity.

To maintain momentum, we need institutional insulation from politics. A National Education Commission, akin to the Reserve Bank or judicial oversight body, must steward the plan across parties. It should be staffed by educators, economists, civil society leaders, and technocrats, accountable to clear metrics—not electoral whims. Every political party should commit to and be held accountable for the same 30‑year plan.

Obstacles will emerge. Corruption plagues provincial education departments. Some teacher unions oppose accountability measures. Communities have lost faith after repeated failures. But these are arguments not for surrender, but for breakthrough. Strong oversight, community engagement, and transparent tracking can transform resistance into partnership. We must offer—and deliver—visible progress on the frontlines, even in the first few years.

Yet perhaps the greatest obstacle to this national education effort isn’t poverty, or even resource constraints. It is the failure of political leadership—specifically, the entrenched corruption and devastating short-termism that has defined much of South African governance since 1994. Too many politicians treat education not as a generational mission but as a rhetorical prop or a jobs program for loyalists. Budgets are squandered, tenders are manipulated, and schools are used as patronage tools. The ANC’s education ministers have come and gone, each announcing their own “turnaround strategy” while leaving the core of the system untouched. It is not a lack of awareness that prevents action—it is the unwillingness to sacrifice short-term political expedience for long-term national survival.

The painful truth is that real education reform may not yield votes in five years—but it will deliver a better country in thirty. That is why it must be wrested from narrow political cycles. South Africa’s leadership class must stop thinking in increments of re-election and start thinking in generations. That requires bravery—a word that has been sadly absent in post-apartheid educational governance. Brave leaders would defy union pressure to demand accountability, reject cadre deployment in favour of competence, and put children above slogans. Until we fix the politics of education, we will not fix the system itself.

The rewards of success are transformative. A better‑educated South Africa means fewer social grants, lower crime, and increased economic output. Education shapes citizens who are healthier, more informed, and more engaged. International investors seek stable, skilled workforces—in increasingly knowledge‑dependent global markets, human capital is the key differentiator. Where doors are locked in fear, education and opportunity build trust instead.

Imagine a child born in a township in 2025 attending a quality preschool, taught by a motivated, well‑trained teacher. That child progresses into high school, gains digital literacy, accesses vocational training, and begins working in a burgeoning tech sector in Cape Town or Joburg by 2055. They contribute taxes, raise children who are better educated still, and form the lifeblood of a South Africa remade from within. This vision isn’t pie in the sky—it’s what happened in Seoul and Tel Aviv. It’s what high-performing Finland planned for decades ago.

We have more than enough evidence. Our challenge is not to question whether it can work—it can. Leaders, citizens, businesspeople: we must decide whether we will deliver. The most ambitious infrastructure we could ever build is not in steel or concrete—it is in minds and hearts. And that project begins today. Because there is no more time to waste.

• Joshua Schewitz is a writer and analyst focused on Israel, Jewish identity, and Middle East politics, with additional expertise in blockchain technology. He lives in Yavne, Israel.

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