Minister Buti Manamela’s closing remarks at the Post-School Education and Training (PSET) Sector Strategy Session were not the language of routine government planning. They were a sober declaration that South Africa’s post-school education and training system must be judged by a harder standard: is it fit for the future we are already living in? Can we shift PSET from being a federation of institutions and funding streams into a coherent system that delivers the one outcome our people measure daily: real opportunity not to be squandered. Herewith my reflections:

The Minister named the pressures without embellishment of geopolitical fragmentation and shifting centres of influence, fiscal constraint and rising costs, a demanding social reality marked by youth unemployment and mental health strain, rapid technological change driven by artificial intelligence and data-driven systems, and climate-linked disruptions affecting water, energy and campus stability. He concluded with a truth that many leaders hesitate to state publicly: incremental change will not be enough. Yes but lets get the basics right. That in itself will be transformative.

That clarity is welcome. But a closing speech however strong does not change a system. What changes a system is whether the next Annual Performance Plan translates political clarity into a small set of measurable commitments that the public can track. In other words: whether we move from diagnosis to proof.

The central question: what will the country see by end-2026?

The PSET system is not judged by its frameworks alone. It is judged by the lived experience of students and families: can I register, can I access funding, can I learn without disruption, can I get workplace exposure, can I graduate into a credible next step?

DHET’s own planning logic already recognises the importance of internal efficiency: pay valid invoices within 30 days, maintain network connectivity uptime, keep vacancy rates below thresholds, secure clean audits. These measures matter because a system cannot deliver externally if it is unstable internally.

But the next phase of reform must connect that internal discipline to visible learner outcomes. Without that connection, we create a public paradox: we can be “administratively improving” while students still experience chaos.

Six pillars must become six proof mechanisms:

Minister Manamela’s six pillars integrate, expand access, ensure responsiveness, raise quality, improve governance, guarantee sustainability should be treated as an operating system, not as a set of aspirations. Each pillar needs a proof mechanism.

1) Integration must be governed as a data-and-decision spine.

Fragmentation does not end because we condemn it. It ends when we establish a single “PSET performance truth” that tracks the learner journey end-to-end: funding decision, registration, attendance/progression, completion, placement or next-step. If the system cannot see itself as one journey, it cannot govern itself as one system.

This is not an abstract ambition. DHET planning already signals the need for coherent planning and implementation and acknowledges governance challenges and drift from NDP goals. Integration should therefore be translated into a quarterly PSET dashboard, built from existing datasets, not a multi-year technology fantasy.

2) Access must be expanded through success, not through churn.

South Africa has learned that access without support does not translate into success. The Minister made it explicit: welfare, academic support, safety, accommodation and funding are not peripheral; they are academic infrastructure.

The practical implication is simple: the APP must track not only enrolments, but retention at the predictable points where students fall out first weeks, first assessment cycle, funding disruptions, accommodation instability. A system that waits for dropout statistics at year-end is a system that manages failure after it happens.

3) Responsiveness must be anchored in real pipelines, not in policy language.

One of the most promising commitments in DHET planning is the establishment of a Just Energy Transition Skills Desk by March 31, 2026 designed as a national coordinating hub for skills pipelines linked to the JET implementation plan.

This is exactly what “fit for the future” looks like: a defined coordinating mechanism that can align universities, TVET, SETAs and industry around priority sectors such as green hydrogen, renewable energy, EV manufacturing and digital skills.

But the desk must not become another committee. It must publish pipeline targets: intake, workplace exposure, certification timelines, and placement routes. Without those, we create a desk that produces reports rather than skills.

4) Quality must be reframed as competence, integrity and currency.

AI is now core infrastructure. That means the PSET sector faces three immediate integrity challenges: assessment credibility, curriculum currency, and staff capability to teach in an AI-shaped world. If quality assurance remains primarily document-based, the system will look compliant while becoming irrelevant.

The strategic move is to establish a national “AI-in-PSET” compact: minimum competence for students and lecturers, assessment redesign standards, and integrity enforcement. That is how we ensure quality is not a slogan but a capability.

5) Governance must be demonstrated through reliability and consequence.

The Minister’s best operational line was this: readiness for 2026 is visible in systems that work, payments that arrive on time, safe residences and support that reaches students before crisis sets in.

The APP must therefore include service reliability standards turnaround times for funding decisions and appeals, payment timeliness, residence accreditation processes, registration system uptime. DHET already measures internal network uptime and supplier payment discipline. Extend that to student-facing reliability. Governance is not only about structures; it is about whether services are predictable and whether failure is corrected quickly.

6) Sustainability must be treated as funding stability and institutional confidence.

A decisive development in DHET planning is the commitment to implement a comprehensive student funding model for the “missing middle” in phases over five years, with an initial capitalisation fund for Phase 1 and further work toward a sustainable model. This is sustainability in practice because unresolved funding gaps create instability and erode trust.

But sustainability is not only new funding. It is also predictable rules, transparent eligibility, consistent decision-making, manageable debt policy and clear appeals. If “missing middle” becomes administratively confusing, it will become politically explosive.

International cooperation: the test is reintegration, not mobilityMinister Manamela’s “agreements to outcomes” framing is correct. The painful truth is that international mobility can fail even when education quality abroad is high because reintegration at home collapses under coordination failures: accreditation delays, professional recognition barriers, absence of placement pathways.

This is solvable. But only if the system appoints a single owner for the reintegration pipeline and measures outcomes such as time-to-accreditation and time-to-placement. Counting “international engagements” is not enough.

From diagnosis to proof: a national compact for quarterly accountability

The public is tired of plans that read well but do not change lived experience. The cure is not more rhetoric; it is proof. DHET and the PSET leadership should publish a concise proof portfolio six to eight indicators that show whether reform is landing: readiness reliability, funding turnaround times, JET pipeline outputs, WBL placements, reintegration outcomes, retention improvements, and integrity-enhanced quality measures.

The system already has promising anchors: a JET Skills Desk, a NEET identification and intervention effort, improved artisan outputs, and an emerging missing-middle funding model.

The next step is to stop treating these as parallel projects and start treating them as the spine of a single reform programme that the nation can track.Specifically we need a small number of public, measurable commitments like:

1. A sector-wide “indicator integrity protocol” that responds directly to the AG’s findings and upgrades the performance architecture across the PSET portfolio.
2. A phased plan for integration that defines integration as a minimum viable data spine enabling learner pathway visibility and outcome tracking.
3. A JET skills commissioning model that produces pipelines linked to projects, not merely a desk and documents.
4. A NEET intervention pipeline (not only a database), with ethical data governance and defined “offers” that connect young people to training, placement, or enterprise pathways.
5. A clear public stance on NSFAS reform and sustainability, including the planned administrative turnaround and the movement toward a tiered system that balances fairness and viability.

Minister Manamela ended with a demanding question: what must we change, strengthen or do differently to prepare for 2026 and beyond?

The answer is now clear. We must stop confusing planning with progress. We must build a system that can prove its performance quarter by quarter through visible improvements in reliability, quality, equity and outcomes. When we can do that, we will not only restore confidence in PSET. We will restore confidence in the idea that public institutions can still deliver in South Africa.

Saying does not amount to achieving. Pillars and plans do not fail because they are wrong. They fail because they are not turned into operating machinery. Show us! Do not tell us!

Let us proceed with honesty, urgency and purpose yes. But also with proof. Because the country cannot afford another wasted moment. Our future and youth depends on this.

* Faiez Jacobs is a former Member of Parliament, founder of The Transcendence Group, Capetonian, Activist, and Servant of the People.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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