OPINION - As South Africa gears up for Phase V of the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI), which aims to create over 200,000 job opportunities for young people, we must ask a vital question: Are we overlooking a golden opportunity to make digital training central to the programme?
Over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), R99 million has been allocated to support teacher training and learning resources. But without a strategic pivot towards digital upskilling, its long-term impact may fall short.
We must now consider how we can better leverage this investment for scale, sustainability, and skills development.
Through Phases I to IV, the BEEI has created over 1.1 million temporary education roles, helping schools fill the void left by South Africa’s shrinking teacher base. But we must do more than repeat what came before.
We should equip these individuals with digital and pedagogical skills to evolve into a new generation of learning facilitators to complement the role of teachers.
The digital divide is not just a gap - it's a sector blind spot
Despite significant investment in digital infrastructure for schools, classroom technology remains underutilised. In many cases, it remains idle, not due to a lack of devices, but due to a lack of trained individuals to integrate it into teaching and learning. And it is always our expectations that teachers take on more, where IT facilitators could be optimising this investment.
This is more than an operational issue; it’s a structural one. The urgency is compounded by the fact that nearly 50% of teachers are considering leaving the profession within the next decade while the system struggles to retain and train educators at scale.
Additionally, with technical STEM educators in critically short supply, our schools are overwhelmed, leaving them to navigate digital transformation on their own.
Rethinking the role of youth in the education system
What if we reimagined BEEI participants not as temporary assistants, but as emerging digital learning facilitators? With proper training, unemployed youth, qualified educators, and subject graduates could become the human infrastructure that supports schools as they adopt digital education.
These individuals could run digital learning labs, provide tutoring, support online learning programmes, and help teachers and learners engage meaningfully with e-learning platforms.
They would not only help bridge the gap caused by pandemic-related learning disruptions, assisting students in catching up on missed content and skills, but also play a pivotal role in enabling the future of education.
By being trained in digital tools and blended learning methods, these facilitators could support the shift towards a more flexible education system, where both in-person and online learning are seamlessly integrated.
This would make education more accessible and adaptable, ensuring that students are better prepared for the workforce of the future.
We have the components; now we need the connection
South Africa is not lacking in digital infrastructure, funding, or talent. What it lacks is a bridge between these elements: a coherent strategy that connects unemployed youth with training, and schools with the digital support they desperately need.
If digital training is embedded into the DNA of the BEEI, we can stretch every Rand spent, delivering more value for money and lasting systemic change. This can empower young South Africans with future-fit skills that serve education, the economy, and society.
The R99 million allocation must be more than a budget line. It should be a turning point, a deliberate shift toward scalable, sustainable models of education support, powered by people and enabled by technology.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Group Editors and its publications.
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