On the margins of the EWF, Minister Gwarube and the South African delegation undertook various engagements towards supporting and fostering partnerships for basic education priorities.
At government level, the Minister met with the South African High Commissioner to the UK, Mr Jeremiah Nyamane Mamabolo, to exchange on basic education priorities and plans requiring cooperation.
Minister Gwarube and the delegation further met with Baroness Jenny Chapman, the UK Minister for Development, to discuss South Africa’s G20 priorities for education, and strengthening cooperation between the DBE and the British Council to improve teacher development.
Minister Gwarube and the delegation met with the UK Minister of Early Education, Mr Stephen Morgan. The meeting was also joined by Dr Mimmy Gondwe, Deputy Minister of Higher Education SA. Discussions focused on collaboration on quality early education, skills recognition, and the G20 2025 Education Working Group agenda.
The Minister also met with the What Works Hub Global Education delegation. The discussion brought together technical leads for a discussion with the Minister on evidence-based policy making in foundational literacy, focusing specifically on South Africa’s priority reform areas.
Additionally, the delegation participated in a high-level seminar on Improving Language, Literacy and Educational Attainment in Early Years convened by the British Academy. The seminar brought together ministers, senior policymakers and international education experts to explore how investing in oral language development can drive long-term improvements in literacy, equity, and educational outcomes based on research and recent national-scale implementations. The delegation also attended the launch of the “OECD Report on The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation”, a report on the mismatch globally between young people’s career aspirations and the available future job types.
Minister Gwarube participated at the British Council and Department for Business and Trade (DBT) Joint Africa Ministerial Breakfast, alongside fellow Education Ministers from across Sub-Saharan and North Africa. The engagement provided a platform to discuss innovative approaches to education transformation in Africa in the context of recent withdrawals of development funding globally; and also examined examples of successful public-private interventions in Africa.
The Minister and the delegation also held talks with Dr Amel Karboul of the UN Education Outcomes Fund discussing collaboration on strengthening ECCE in South Africa; Google For Education to discuss how digital tools can improve curriculum delivery and unlock efficiencies that empower educators and learners to focus on teaching and learning; and Microsoft to discuss digital solutions that can be used to reduce the administrative burden on educators and improve access to quality inclusive education.
Minister Gwarube and the delegation held talks with the Gates Foundation on taking foundational learning forward as a legacy of South Africa’s Chair-ship of G20 2025. The Minister and the delegation later met with Cambridge University Press, exploring avenues for possible collaboration.
The Minister addressed the All-Party Parliamentary Group High Level Ministerial Roundtable. The Roundtable was attended by African Ministers of Education, the UK government, MPs, and members of the Coalition for Foundational Learning to discuss partnering to drive improvements in foundational learning in Africa.
Minister Gwarube further addressed the Oxford Education and Policy Dialogue hosted by the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. The Dialogue was held under the theme “Resilient Education Systems; Evidence-Based Education in Times of Scarcity”. Minister Gwarube reflected on the opportunities and challenges of advancing foundational learning and evidence-informed policy making in diverse national contexts. She further shared lessons of the South African experience in developing dedicated research capacity to enhance, from an evidence-based perspective, sector planning, monitoring, and evaluation.