New school building crisis

Lagging: Country rapidly running out of space to educate its growing youth

- Jarryd Westerdale

South Africa needs more schools as the pace at which new ones are being built is lagging behind the swelling numbers of children needing to be accommodated, say experts. The sight of stranded pupils at the start of the 2025 school year highlighted the need to build capacity before the influx of school pupils becomes unmanageable.

Government has built a limited number of new schools in recent years, while private developers continue to provide schooling options for families with more resources.

In Gauteng, just 28 new schools have been built since 2014, while 20 new schools are due to be built by 2029.

Figures from 2023 show that just over 13.4 million pupils were attending roughly 22 500 public schools in South Africa.

The department of basic education's School Realities Education Management Information Systems publication from 2009 showed that South Africa had 11.8 million pupils in 24 693 public schools.

These numbers show that the number of public schools in South Africa has been going backwards.

The World Bank published a study in 2003 that said the country had 11.7 million children enrolled in roughly 27 000 schools nationally as of 2000.