Overview
- At the 26th National Teaching Awards, President Cyril Ramaphosa called on state and local actors to stop placing the full burden of schooling on teachers and to provide the conditions they need to teach.
- He named specific priorities for government action: safe school buildings, smaller classes to ease overcrowding, fewer routine administrative tasks for teachers, and stronger ongoing professional development.
- Gauteng education officials have reported acute pressures in the province, including overcrowded classrooms, discipline problems, infrastructure backlogs, poverty and unequal access to learning materials and technology.
- Ramaphosa urged teachers to use their role to help prevent gender-based violence by teaching respect, equality and consent following recent discoveries of multiple female victims.
- He warned that artificial intelligence and digital tools should support lesson planning and personalized help but must not replace teachers’ empathy, discipline and human mentoring, and he used the awards to honour teachers while pressing for coordinated policy and community support.