PUBLISHED BY:
WRITTEN BY:
Matshidiso Lencoasa
Earlier this month, the class of 2025 delivered record matric results, gifting the country a moment of collective pride where young people’s stories are too often characterised by hardship.
Not a single district in the top-performing KwaZulu-Natal recorded a pass rate below 85%. This is a remarkable achievement in a province long marked by delays in the delivery of school meals and severe shortages of educators. Across the country, many learners achieved success in spite of persistent barriers that continue to define daily schooling.
Many woke up before sunrise and braved long distances to school as scholar transport budgets were reduced or delayed. They learned in understaffed, overcrowded and often dilapidated classrooms that no child should have to accept as normal. Despite this, they kept going. In these learners, we see perseverance turned into possibility and hardship turned into hope.
As a country, we have a responsibility to honour the efforts of these young people. Turning this momentum into real opportunity is a shared task, but the state has a particularly powerful to play.
The government collects public money through taxes and borrowing to deliver services and rebuild communities. Where young people from marginalised communities carry the heaviest burdens of poverty and unemployment, public investment must prioritise opportunities that empower them to learn, work and build our nation.
Keeping the momentum going by investing in future teachers
Honouring their efforts means enabling academic success to move beyond matric and open doors into further study.
One of the clearest signals young people are sending is their desire to serve. Teaching degrees have emerged as some of the most sought-after programmes across institutions, despite severe capacity constraints.
Last year, at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology alone, more than 23 000 applications were received for fewer than 230 places in its Bachelor of Education programme.
There is an opportunity for the government to help young people from marginalised communities overcome financial barriers, realise their aspirations and serve their communities. Strengthening and expanding the Funza Lushaka bursary, which trains future teachers for public schools, is a powerful way to respond directly to this demand.
Historically, funding for the bursary has been squeezed, even seeing a nominal cut of R397.9 million in 2024/25. This hinders its ability to grow the pipeline of trained educators. At the same time, student funding across the system is under strain,among the myriad of issues plaguing NSFAS, includes its 2025/26 R10-billion shortfall that leaves prospective students in limbo.
A government that responds decisively to this moment would empower young people to fulfil their aspirations as future teachers by strengthening the public education system rather than letting record matric results fade into another year of overcrowded, understaffed classrooms.
Furthermore, a well-governed Technical and Vocational Education and Training sector is a powerful means of keeping the momentum going for the class of 2025 through training early childhood development practitioners, education support staff and artisans, provided governance failures that undermine skills delivery are addressed.
Put teachers in classrooms
At a time when millions of young people shoulder the burden of an economy unable to create meaningful work at scale, investing in teaching posts becomes a powerful nation-building intervention. In doing so, we can create jobs that lift families out of poverty, ease classroom overcrowding and improve education for the next generation.
While public schools carried more than 30 000 vacant teaching posts last year, the Department of Basic Education’s own recruitment database listed over 12 000 qualified, unemployed educators in 2025. This is a gap driven by strained provincial budgets that have forced hiring freezes over the past few years and limited the public sector’s ability to absorb teachers into classrooms.
Worse, the Auditor-General has flagged payroll overpayments to “ghost workers” in some provincial education departments. In Mpumalanga, Parliament raised concerns over reports of more than R6-million paid to deceased or terminated employees, even as classrooms remain understaffed and funded posts go unfilled.
In addition, there is also space to support young people who are still finding their footing in the labour market. This is where public employment programmes can come in. Last year, the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI), the country’s largest youth employment programme, attracted around 1.9 million applicants for just 200 000 positions, meaning millions of young people were competing for short-term roles in schools. This programme’s implementation is fragile; in 2024, the programme was not implemented at all, cutting off one of the few available entry points into work.
A well-resourced BEEI is a powerful intervention in easing pressures on overcrowded classrooms by absorbing teaching assistants, and at the same time, offering young people income, experience and dignity. However, this requires a consistent and clear pathway beyond short-term placements lest it becomes another temporary fix in a labour market that already offers too few long-term opportunities. Through real investment in the BEEI, government can sustain this momentum and turn first work opportunities into lasting futures for young people.
With the State of the Nation Address and the Budget Speech approaching, this is a moment for the government to push this momentum beyond recognition, beyond rhetoric. Celebrating young people’s resilience is not enough if it is not matched with real investment in their futures.
Our government must recognise that spending on education, training and employment is not money lost, but investing in the social fabric that builds our nation. When young people are supported to study, to work and to upskill, the returns are stronger schools, lower unemployment and reduced poverty. With time, these young people enter stable employment, broaden the tax base and become contributors to the public purse.
Investing in the class of 2025 is how we build a South Africa of opportunity, dignity and a stronger future.
Lencoasa is budget analyst at SECTION27 and member of the Budget Justice Coalition.
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