Ramaphosa says despite progress made, huge challenges remain in improving education

President Cyril Ramaphosa said despite the significant progress made to improve education over the last three decades, huge challenges remain.

Writing in his weekly newsletter, Ramaphosa points to the uneven access to resources and quality teaching as being major factors, especially in township and rural schools.

Ramaphosa has reflected on the improvements made so far, not only to education but to youth unemployment since deploying young people to schools as education assistants.

In his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last week, Ramaphosa said more work needs to be done to prepare young people to compete and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Ramaphosa said one of the best efforts to help with overcrowding and limited access for educators to professional development and support is the basic education employment initiative, with more than 1.3 million work opportunities created for school assistants.

It’s now the largest youth employment programme in the country, giving young people not only their first jobs, but also strengthening foundations of learning in the schools that need it most.

Education assistants have been placed at 19,000 no-fee primary schools to help with numeracy and literacy.

The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has stepped in to help more than 1,000 underfunded early childhood centres to meet the qualifications for a subsidy.

Ramaphosa said it’s government’s aspiration that there’s continued multi-sectoral cooperation across government, the private sector and civil society to provide quality education.