Educational challenges remain one of the key talking points that the country has been focusing on as part of its G20 presidency, building on what has come before and helping shape solutions in the process.

The G20 Education Working Group (EdWG) was established during the Argentinian Presidency in 2018. Subsequent presidencies all incorporated the EdWG as a permanent Working Group of the Sherpa track.

Since 2018, several educational challenges have been dealt with by the G20 EdWG, including: strengthening learning outcomes; equitable access; technological tools, digitalisation and digital technologies in education, universal quality education, financing, partnerships for education; international cooperation; skills for life and work; early childhood care and education (ECCE); universal quality education; and a focus on education for sustainable development.

The country is hosting the EdWG, cognisant of the fact that South Africa, as part of the troika from 2024 to 2026, will build upon the achievements of India and Brazil to ensure continuity in taking forward the development agenda.

South Africa’s three priorities for education are: “Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialisation, Employment and Inequality”, “Food Security” and lastly “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Innovation for Sustainable Development”.

The country has also embraced the theme “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability” for its G20 presidency.

Basic Education Minister, Siviwe Gwarube, has been playing her part to make sure that education stakeholders across the country are being heard by holding a series of indabas across the provinces, which fit into South Africa’s education agenda, ahead of a planned national indaba.

While at the Western Cape Provincial Education G20 Indaba, Gwarube sat down to not only tackle the topic of South Africa’s education priorities, but also how South Africa is faring against the rest of the nations in the G20.

“I think the strategic opportunity for having the G20 presidency is that we are not only pushing our three themes, but we also have an opportunity now to put some of the things that we think are pertinent in education on the global stage.

“For instance, the mutual recognition of skills would be a massive game-changer for South Africa, because it would mean that South African young people who acquire skills in a particular field can be recognised across the world. If we can get that agreement, amongst the G20 countries, that would be great, especially for young people who’ve acquired particular qualifications,” Gwarube said.

She added that the presidency also allows South Africa to put ECCE on the global stage.

“Many of the G20 countries that are going to be coming here have made the strategic reorientation years ago, where they’re focused on the foundations of learning, where they’ve done the investment, and I think with us and Brazil and India, we’re going to be some really powerful voices in the global South that says, ‘look, we want to follow suit’.”

Gwarube explained that the focus on foundational learning can yield up to 2% GDP growth for a country, fix the literacy crisis, and impact on learners’ ability to tackle historically challenging subjects like maths and science.

“We may not be on par with many of the G20 countries that are coming here, but we are certainly having the conversation and saying, it’s not that we don’t want to be benchmarked against the best of the best; we will continue benchmarking ourselves against the rest of the world.”

Universities themselves are having to contend with the impact of technology, where in one instance, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching and Learning at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Professor Brandon Collier-Reed, announced that the Senate’s Teaching and Learning Committee endorsed the UCT AI in Education Framework in June 2025.

Collier-Reed said the endorsement of the framework was a result of UCT moving with the times, as “artificial intelligence technologies are becoming part of our daily lives”.

“Staff and students are using tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in innovative and productive ways; while at other times these technologies present significant challenges, requiring us to rethink teaching pedagogies, assessment practices and the fundamentals of what a university experience should be, and what our qualifications should signify in a changing world,” he said.

Professor Maniraj Sukdaven from the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria echoed how technology has impacted education, and said that across the education spectrum, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is leaving its mark.

“It plays a significant role, but it also has cut down research time for students, and there is a downside to that. When AI is used in the instances of education, more specifically in the Master’s and PhD programmes, AI is what it is – it is artificial. Simply meaning is that sometimes the citations and referencing don’t correspond with what they are saying.

“With South Africa, and the global economy, South Africa is not very far (behind) as students in schools have cellphones and kids are beginning to use that. Even Google has AI. It is worldwide,” Sukdaven said.

“Maybe one can talk about the technical details? Maybe that is something we need to develop further as South Africans, because AI is used in educational science – that would include engineering, and education itself.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za

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