Manamela’s digital bet: Can SA’s higher education system survive the revolution under way?

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 tea