Creating opportunities for young people while strengthening schools

In the State of the Nation Address last week, I spoke about the work we are doing in our schools to prepare young people to compete and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

While we have made significant progress over the last three decades, from expanding access to school to steadily improving matric results, there are still huge challenges in education.

Access to resources and quality teaching is uneven. Schools in townships and rural areas often struggle with overcrowding and educators have limited access to professional development and support.

One of the efforts helping to fill this gap is the Basic Education Employment Initiative, which was founded in 2020 as part of the Presidential Employment Stimulus. The initiative deploys young people to schools as education assistants.

To date, the school assistants programme has created more than 1.3 million work opportunities. It is the largest youth employment programme in our country’s history, giving young people their first foothold in the world of work while strengthening the foundations of learning in the schools that need it most.

The young people involved in the programme go into schools well prepared. General school assistants need to at least have grade nine, while education assistants need at least a matric certificate. In the most recent phase of the programme, 32% of education assistants had some sort of tertiary qualification and 14% had a teaching qualification. Education assistants are provided with both compulsory and optional training including on school safety, online safety, financial literacy, word processing, AI fluency and coding.

The initiative provides work experience and livelihood support while at the same time advancing the public good. This is part of the goal of the Public Employment Stimulus to deliver public employment and livelihood programmes on a large scale while providing social value in the process.

The work of the education assistants allows teachers to spend more time on teaching and on lesson preparation, thereby contributing directly to improved educational outcomes.

Education assistants have been placed at 19,000 no-fee primary schools to support numeracy and as Reading Champions to support literacy and bilingual reading. The effect of this intervention is being seen in rapid improvements in foundational literacy skills in many schools.

Beyond educational and curriculum support, education assistants are supporting digital learning, working in care and support with at-risk learners, and serving as laboratory and workshop assistants.

This is not only good for the schools. For many of the school assistants, this experience is transformative. They are gaining skills and real work experience that will serve them well in finding employment and succeeding in their careers.

As we work to expand access to Early Childhood Development (ECD) through the Bana Pele mass registration of ECD facilities and an increase in subsidies for ECD learners, the Presidential Employment Stimulus has stepped up support to the sector through the Social Employment Fund.

The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, working with an implementing partner, is helping more than 1,000 previously disadvantaged, underfunded ECD centres to meet the qualifying criteria for a ECD subsidy. The centres are also receiving nutritional support for learners, as well as toys, books and learning materials. The work supported by the Social Employment Fund now reaches over 50,000 children in ECD centres across the country.

Meeting the constitutional imperative to provide quality education to our nation’s young is an all-of-society effort. These initiatives illustrate clearly the benefits of multisectoral cooperation between government, the private sector and civil society.

It is our aspiration that this successful programme should continue to grow as we strive to create more work opportunities for young South Africans and at the same time deliver quality education for all.

With best regards,