The Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Godongwana, delivered the medium term budget to Parliament on 12 March 2025, offering some relief to the education sector. “Government has added R19.1 billion over the medium term to keep approximately 11,000 teachers in classrooms as paying salaries constitute 76% of provincial education budgets. Our learner-teacher ratios remain higher than we would like, meaning that we still need more teachers in classrooms,” he said.

Only R24 out of every R100 is left for funding school infrastructure, meals for learners from poor backgrounds, and stationery and textbooks. The foundation to building the next generation of citizens who contribute economically and socially is Early Childhood Development (ECD). Despite this, the subsidy for ECD has not increased from the 2019 level of R17 per day, per child. To remedy this, an additional R10 billion over the medium term has been allocated to increase the subsidy to R24 per day per child. The additional funding will also support increased access to ECD for approximately 700,000 more children, up to the age of four years old.

To this end, the DBE, in collaboration with Business Leadership South Africa, will be hosting the ECD 2030 Bana Pele Roadmap Leadership Summit in Johannesburg on 17 March 2025. The event will be graced by President Cyril Ramaphosa who will be delivering the keynote address. The Summit will be attended by NGOs, donors, funders, sister departments and Provincial Education Departments (PEDs). Three panel discussions will be engaging in robust discussions around innovative financing solutions; the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive and the social compact; as well as lessons from other social compacts. Commissions will convene and culminate in the adoption of a five-year roadmap with joint commitment towards achieving the intended goals and milestones towards universal access and the provision of quality ECD programmes.

The arts, culture, sport and recreation sector has been allocated R38.4 billion over the medium term to support school sports, national recreation events and selected sporting codes, as well as to preserve and promote the cultural, heritage and linguistic diversity of South Africa. During the UNESCO’s Jubilee Celebrations for International Mother Language Day in Paris on 21 February 2025, Basic Education Minister and President of the South African National Commission for UNESCO, Ms Siviwe Gwarube, said that expanding Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) is not just important; it is necessary: “However, expanding access to quality mother tongue education will require significant financial investment; and we are convinced that the long-term benefits will be life-changing for our learners and our country”.