Education keeps being reformed, but nothing is being reimagined

EDUCATION in South Africa is in a permanent state of reform. Curricula are revised, policies are adjusted, assessments are redesigned, and new frameworks are introduced regularly. Each reform is presented as necessary, responsive, and urgent. Despite this constant motion, a persistent unease remains. Something fundamental is not shifting.

The problem is not a lack of effort. It is a lack of imagination. Much of what we call reform is administrative rather than conceptual. We refine what already exists instead of questioning whether it still serves its purpose. We update content without revisiting intent. We adjust delivery modes without rethinking what learning is meant to cultivate in this moment of profound social, economic, and technological change.

Education, in other words, is being maintained rather than reimagined. This maintenance mindset is understandable. Institutions operate under pressure: regulatory compliance, resource constraints, performance metrics, and public scrutiny. Reform becomes a process of risk management. Change is incremental, careful, and often constrained by inherited structures that are treated as immovable. But the result is an education system that responds to the present by looking backwards.

We continue to educate as though certainty were the norm. Curricula still privilege coverage over coherence, content over context. Assessment often rewards recall, compliance, and performance under pressure, even as the world beyond the classroom demands judgement, adaptability, ethical reasoning, and the capacity to think across uncertainty. Students are trained to succeed within systems, not to interrogate them. Learning becomes about meeting requirements rather than engaging with complexity.

This disconnect is increasingly visible.

Graduates emerge qualified but unsure, credentialed but cautious. Many have learned how to perform, but not how to orient themselves in environments marked by instability, contradiction, and rapid change. They are prepared for tasks, but not always for thinking. For work, but not always for work that is meaningful, ethical, or sustainable. The emphasis on employability has intensified this tension. In responding to labour market pressures, education has been asked to become more responsive, more aligned, more immediately useful.

While relevance matters, the narrowing of educational purpose carries risks. When education is framed primarily as a pipeline to employment, it becomes vulnerable to economic volatility and short-term demand. Learning is reduced to skills acquisition, and the deeper work of intellectual and moral formation is sidelined. Education has always served a broader function. At its best, education equips people not only to earn a living, but to make sense of the world, to participate thoughtfully in society, and to exercise judgement in the face of uncertainty.

It develops the capacity to question, reflect, imagine alternatives, and act responsibly. These capacities cannot be rushed, easily measured, or neatly aligned with quarterly labour needs, but they are essential to any society seeking long-term resilience and coherence. Reimagining education requires us to return to these fundamentals. It requires asking what kind of thinking the present moment demands. What dispositions matter when systems are fragile, information is abundant but uneven, and decisions carry ethical weight? How do we prepare people not only to function within existing structures, but to reshape them when they no longer serve the public good?

This is not a call for abstraction or detachment from reality. It is a call for depth. Students need spaces to think slowly as well as act decisively. They need opportunities to grapple with ambiguity, to integrate knowledge across disciplines, and to reflect on the social consequences of their choices. Education must make room for failure as learning, not only for success as performance. It must cultivate agency, not just adaptability.

Institutions, too, need permission to think differently. Reimagining education will require courage: to resist constant reaction, to defend intellectual purpose, and to move beyond the comfort of reform cycles that change form but not substance. It will require collaboration across sectors, not merely alignment. It will require trusting teachers as professionals capable of shaping learning meaningfully, rather than treating them as implementers of endless change. Most importantly, reimagining education requires a shift in how success is understood.

Success cannot be measured only by throughput, completion rates, or immediate employment outcomes. It must also be reflected in graduates’ capacity to think critically, act ethically, engage constructively with difference, and imagine futures that are more just and sustainable than the present. These outcomes unfold over time. They demand patience, investment, and confidence in education as a public good.

Reform keeps systems running. Reimagination gives them direction. South Africa does not need less reform. It requires more engaged questions. It needs an education system willing to pause, reflect, and articulate a compelling vision of what learning is for in an uncertain world. Without that vision, reform will continue to circle familiar ground, busy with adjustment but light on transformation.

Education has always been more than preparation for work.  It is preparation for life in complexity, for responsibility in uncertainty, and for participation in shaping the future. Until we are willing to reimagine education at this level, reform will remain necessary, constant, and ultimately insufficient.

Professor Aradhana Ramnund-Mansingh is the manager, School of Business, Mancosa; empowerment coach for women and former HR executive.

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

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