SA repeats old education mistakes as AI emerges
A pattern is emerging within our schooling system that needs highlighting as South Africa faces its next major technology decision.
In coding and robotics, with the best intentions, directives were given, curriculum was developed, and then the move forward stalled.
We are beginning to see take shape again with artificial intelligence (AI), writes Celeste Labuschagne, PhD candidate, and lecturer and learning framework developer at Belgium Campus iTversity.
Globally, the question is no longer whether AI should be used in schools, but how it can be integrated responsibly, ethically and effectively. Most countries entered the generative AI debate with national AI or digital strategies already in place, many updated since 2023.
The OECD’s Digital Education Outlook 2026 notes that the most common immediate policy response has been national or system-level guidance covering ethical use, academic integrity, data protection, and the roles of teachers and students. In South Africa, we are still waiting for that conversation to properly begin.
AI Literacy Needs Structure
Without direction from the Department of Basic Education, teachers are experimenting with AI tools on their own because learners are already using them at home, and pretending otherwise is not a strategy. Without a shared framework, the outcome will be uneven – some learners receiving structured exposure, others receiving none, with no curriculum designed to build progressively from one year to the next.
AI literacy cannot be introduced through a once-off lesson or isolated workshop. Like mathematics or language, it needs to develop over time, with foundational skills built grade by grade. Teachers also need training to help learners use these tools in ways that strengthen thinking rather than simply outsource it.
My concern is that we are slipping into a familiar pattern. The DBE spent years building momentum around Fourth Industrial Revolution skills such as coding, robotics, future-readiness. Curriculum pilots were launched, timelines announced, and educators, myself included, invested considerable time writing manuals and preparing classroom material.
Then the focus shifted back to foundational literacy and numeracy because the system was not ready for what had been promised. Educators were left holding work prepared for programmes that never fully materialised.
By this year, attackers were using AI to scale and accelerate cyber crime, which extends from generating code and automating attacks, to crafting convincing phishing and deepfake scams. The AI Incident Database lists more than 7 000 incidents in which AI was used as a hacking tool.