South Africa is not waiting for the digital revolution — it is living inside it. That is the message Minister of Higher Education and Training Buti Manamela will take to parliament on Tuesday when he tables his budget vote speech.
His address is built around a central idea: digitisation is no longer optional; it is the backbone of the country’s future workforce.
“The digital revolution is not approaching South Africa. It is already restructuring our economy, our workplaces and our labour markets,” Manamela said in an interview before the budget vote.
“Artificial intelligence, automation and digital platforms are not abstract threats or distant possibilities — they are already reshaping call centres, logistics, mining, banking, manufacturing, retail and even public administration.”
Manemela is set to table the 2026/27 budget vote speech in the National Assembly on Tuesday, with digitisation positioned as the key driver of South Africa’s skills revolution.
The budget prioritises workplace-integrated learning, apprenticeships, the sustainability of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, infrastructure investment and the expansion of digital learning platforms across universities, TVET colleges and sector education and training authorities (Setas).
“When young people leave our institutions, they should not leave into unemployment. People need to know that when they walk into our institutions, it must translate into something else during and beyond that.
“That’s why we’re focusing on workplace-integrated learning apprenticeships … so the budget invests in programmes that will ultimately translate into employment, livelihoods and so on.”
Expanding access to education remained another priority, although Manamela stressed that the issue was not simply increasing enrolment numbers but improving the quality of education across the entire system.
The shift toward digital learning accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, when online learning platforms became central to teaching delivery.
“It’s already happening in the private sector. It has reduced the cost of learning and teaching, so digitalisation is the future of access to quality education in South Africa and that’s … [what] this budget is speaking to,” the minister said.
While addressing current challenges, Manamela noted that a third consideration was preparing for the future economy by using digital skills and artificial intelligence, advancing the green economy (for example, research capacity) and strengthening international partnerships.
A recent visit to China saw the minister return with two partnership agreements that would cost the country nothing but assist in developing new skills in hydrogen and energy, for example.
While the education system was preparing for today’s jobs, it must be about shaping the future because it was not about being stuck “where we are but we should begin … moving … to prepare for the now and … the future”.
“This is the centre of the budget. We’re building a single system that’s currently in silos; we must stop seeing education as a social expense. We must see education as a socio- economic and developmental spend.”
The question was no longer whether South Africa participated in the transition.
“We already are participants,” he said. The real question is whether the country will shape the transition deliberately and inclusively — or be shaped by it on terms set elsewhere.
Beneath the budget allocations lay a broader argument about the future of work — and the future of South Africa’s institutions.
“We do not primarily have a skills shortage. We have a workforce-transition capacity problem,” Manamela argued.
A skills shortage implied the country simply needed more graduates, artisans and engineers. A transition-capacity problem ran deeper: South Africa’s institutions were not configured to move people from where they were to where the economy was headed.
“We still run too much of our education and training system as if careers are static, qualifications are permanent and technological change is gradual. But none of that is true anymore.”
Workers required reskilling throughout their lifetimes, he said. Qualifications had to evolve continuously. Occupational pathways were shifting rapidly. Digital literacy was no longer optional. Adaptability itself has become an economic capability.
That, Manamela argued, made institutional agility the central challenge facing the country.
“Can universities adapt curricula fast enough? Can TVET colleges respond dynamically to labour market demand? Can Setas move beyond compliance administration toward real workforce planning? Can quality councils modernise qualification development cycles?”
Those were not merely administrative questions, he warned. They were strategic national questions — and South Africa’s institutional architecture was not built for the current pace of technological change.
The country entered the transition carrying deep structural inequalities. Millions of young people remain outside employment, education or training, while many schools and communities lacked basic digital infrastructure.
That was where the crisis became existential.
“Technological acceleration, institutional lag and social inequality are now intersecting simultaneously,” he said.
“When these three forces converge, they do not produce inclusion automatically. They produce exclusion. Quietly. Incrementally.”
The digital divide, he warned, was no longer simply a communications problem. It was becoming a development divide, a citizenship divide and a participation divide.
Nowhere was that contradiction more visible than in the post-school education and training system. South Africa had built a system disproportionately oriented toward the minority who entered university, while the majority navigated their futures through TVET colleges, CET colleges, occupational programmes and workplace learning.
“These sectors carry the burden of workforce transition, yet they remain under-resourced and undervalued. That is not merely a social injustice. It is a strategic economic mistake.”
In an address at the University of Johannesburg on Friday, Manamela said South Africa was not short of policies or strategies. “What it lacks is coordination, execution and accountability.”
Too often, he argued, institutions operated in silos while the economy functioned as an integrated system. “Too frequently, policy cycles move more slowly than technological cycles.”
The department is pursuing what Manamela described as a systemic repositioning strategy focused on expanding digital infrastructure across the post-school system; accelerating qualifications in AI, cybersecurity, renewable energy and automation; improving coordination between SETAs, universities and industrial policy; investing in long-term foresight capacity; and strengthening accountability.
“The public is no longer satisfied with policy intentions alone,” he said.
Manamela acknowledged that the government could not manage the transition on its own. Universities, TVET colleges, Setas and industry needed to become more responsive and collaborative.
“The countries that will benefit most from the digital revolution will not necessarily be those with the most advanced machines,” he said. “They will be those with the most capable people.”
South Africa, Manamela said, had the institutional capacity to adapt. But capacity without urgency meant little in an economy being reshaped by technological change.
The digital revolution would not pause while South Africa debated its readiness. The transition was under way. The question was whether South Africans would be equipped
to lead within it or whether too many would remain excluded from it.
Manamela believes the country can rise to the challenge.
But belief, he said, must be matched by urgency. “What remains necessary is collective will… because the digital revolution will not pause while we debate whether we are ready.”
©Higher Education Media Services. – ednews.africa
Higher Education Minister Buti Manamela says South Africa must urgently adapt its education and training system to artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation as the country confronts a “workforce-transition capacity problem”
