President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the country in his eighth State of the Nation Address (SONA) on 12 February 2026, outlining priorities for the year ahead. What is meant to serve as an opportunity for the President and his Cabinet to account to the people on the progress made in implementing previous commitments, SONA has now been reduced to a ceremonial red-carpet fashion show and an annual whitewashing speech from the President, filled with empty promises and soft metaphors that offer little to no comfort to the people who are suffering in this country.
This anti-black and anti-poor, neoliberal Government of National Unity (GNU) led by President Cyril Ramaphosa has failed young people throughout their administration, and we are tired of seeing the platitudes being given to the people by those in ivory towers who are far removed from the daily reality of ordinary South Africans.
The litany of empty promises dates as far back as 2018, when the President said in his first SONA speech that there would be continued investment in basic education, to expand access and improve educational outcomes. What we have found is a decrease of 8.5% after accounting for rising education costs and learner enrollment growth between 2018 and 2025. This shows that investment in education has declined significantly due to the austerity measures imposed by the National Treasury on the behest of this uncaring government, led by Cyril Ramaphosa.
A list of failed promises made by President Ramaphosa to schools includes:
| 2018 | “Government will continue to invest in expanding access to quality basic education and improving the outcomes of our public schools.”
In reality, real per-learner spending on basic education has declined by 8.5 percentage points between 2018 and 2025. |
| 2019 | “We are determined to eradicate unsafe and inappropriate sanitation facilities within the next three years. Watch this space.”
In 2026, there are still hundreds of public schools where learners are reliant on pit latrines. |
| 2019 | “Over the next six years, we will provide every school child in South Africa with digital workbooks and textbooks on a tablet device.”
Many learners still go to school without textbooks, let alone tablets. |
| 2020 | “This year, we will be introducing coding and robotics in Grades R to 3 in 200 schools, with a plan to implement it fully by 2022.”
Another failed promise. |
| 2021 | “Another approved project is SA Connect, a programme to roll out broadband to schools, hospitals, police stations and other government facilities.”
As of July 2024, nearly 80% of South Africa’s 22,511 schools do not have internet for teaching and learning. In 2025, the Department of Basic Education stopped including this measure in its Education Facilities Management System Report |
| 2022 | “Government is introducing an innovative social infrastructure delivery mechanism to address issues that afflict the delivery of school infrastructure… This approach is being piloted in schools in the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape.”
Real spending by provinces on school infrastructure in 2026 is set to be lower than it was in 2022. |
| 2023 | “Schools must be safe and allow for effective learning and teaching.”
Hundreds of schools do not have secure perimeter fencing. School Safety Committees remain untrained and non-functional. Psychosocial support to learners in underresourced and underprovisioned. |
| 2024 | “With this support, [referring to the Child Support Grant, no-fee schooling, and the National School Nutrition Programme] Tintswalo – democracy’s child – was able to complete high school.”
Under Ramaphosa’s administration, the CSG remains below the food poverty line, while no-fee schools and the NSNP are not funded sufficiently to meet their obligations. |
| 2025 | “Last year, we signed the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, which is pivotal for ensuring that education is accessible and inclusive for all South Africans.”
Key provisions in BELA, like compulsory Grade R, remain unfunded; while regulations relating to school capacity, admissions, and language policies have not yet been implemented to change the status quo. |
| 2025 | “Our immediate focus is to expand access to early childhood development for every child.”
The Early Childhood Development subsidy remains at the same value as it was in 2018, after adjusting for inflation, and there is no credible plan for public investment at scale to provide decent infrastructure to ECD centres or universalise ECD in the near future. |
In light of these failed promises, the critical question remains: why is it that a child’s experience of education in South Africa still depends very much on where they are born (geographical location), how wealthy they are (socioeconomic status), the colour of their skin (race) or their ability (when challenged by disability)?
Like in 2026, every year we witness the recurring crisis of unplaced learners, especially in provinces such as the Western Cape and Gauteng. This is not merely an administrative issue. It is political. It reflects the structural barriers that prevent learners, predominantly from Black working-class families, from accessing education, which the government still needs to address urgently. The reality of the situation is this: there have not been enough schools built in Gauteng and the Western Cape to make sure that each learner is timeously placed in a public school. The Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) programme, which was meant to fast-track the eradication of inadequate, unsafe and poor infrastructure backlogs, has failed to fully meet the growing demand for quality and safe school infrastructure, forcing teachers and learners to perform in poor school conditions. President Ramaphosa must prioritise continued investment in basic education to address overcrowding and ensure that each learner has access to a conducive learning environment.
The cumulative effect of these failed commitments is most starkly felt by young people exiting the basic education system. Even the ‘lucky’ 6 in 10 learners who do not exit before completing matric still have no protection against exclusion. Today, approximately 40 – 45% of young people aged 15-34 are not in employment, education, and training – one of the highest rates of structural labour market exclusion in the world.
This is no fault of their own. The high (youth) unemployment rate is not due to ‘laziness’, as some government Ministers, such as Minister Gwede Mantashe, claim. It is because the South African economy simply does not create enough jobs to go around. The importance of continued investment in public employment programmes, which provide crucial work experience and skills development opportunities to reduce poverty, crime and unemployment, especially for youth, women and people with disabilities, therefore cannot be understated.
The decline in real per student state spending and limited capacity continues to place pressure on our various Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), with the Post School Education and Training (PSET) system failing to keep up with the growing demand for further education, disproportionately and unjustly affecting Black, poor and rural students in particular. Minister Buti Manamela confirmed this in late January this year, citing that while more than 650 000 learners achieved a matric pass, the entire PSET system only has approximately 535 000 planned and funded spaces available. Many students who are placed and funded cannot access affordable, quality and safe accommodation – a requirement for a conducive living and learning environment to support academic and holistic development and success.
Access to tertiary education for poorer students relies on financial aid, yet the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) continues to face significant budget shortfalls, resulting in widespread uncertainty and potential defunding of students each academic year. Such a funding gap results in less equity in higher education and worsens existing socio-economic inequalities in the country. President Ramaphosa and his administration must act urgently to ensure that all eligible students from poor and working-class backgrounds have access to tertiary education.
Each year that the government defers infrastructure delivery, cuts teacher posts, or abandons youth employment programmes, it locks a generation of youth into precarity and waithood.
Resilience should not be used to excuse inaction. It’s a deliberate way to avoid accountability and delay meaningful change. Despite systemic failures, young people continue to persevere in a systemic failure that does not meet their needs. We must also be honest about who bears the brunt of this failure. It is Black learners who attend schools without libraries, laboratories, safe sanitation, or sufficient teachers. It is Black children who are denied entry into schools due to systematic administrative neglect in admissions policies. It is Black youth who exit schooling into unemployment at scale.
This government’s failure to deliver equitable education disregards the diverse and intersecting challenges that each student/learner faces. By not addressing barriers related to gender, race, (dis)ability, geographical location and socioeconomic status, the education system perpetuates inequality and limits opportunities due to a lack of evidence or warning. Equal Education and others have sounded the alarm for decades. Governments’ failures, in both Ramaphosa-led administrations, are the result of repeated political choices that have protected austerity, enabled corruption, and insulated those in power from accountability. This SONA, we reject vague metaphors and attempts to sidestep accountability. We need budgets that provide for public services, schools that are safe, teachers who are supported, pathways into work and study, and a state that treats Black lives and futures as non-negotiable. We do not accept platitudes any longer: we need results that we can see with our own eyes.
For media queries, please contact: Ayanda Sishi-Wigzell, Communications Manager
+27 76 879 3017, ayanda@equaleducation.org.za