Business
South Africa’s SONA 2025: A Golden Opportunity for Business Schools to Boost Skills and Meet National Needs
The 2025 State of the Nation Address (SONA) has laid out an ambitious roadmap for South Africa’s future, emphasizing ethical leadership, skills development, and inclusive economic growth. President Cyril Ramaphosa called for a government that upholds dignity, humility, and respect while emphasizing the significance of partnerships in a geopolitically complex world.
A central initiative announced in SONA 2025 is the National Dialogue, aimed at capturing diverse perspectives to shape the country’s long-term vision. This presents a pivotal opportunity for South African business schools to develop participative competencies and critical thinking skills essential for a dynamic, progressive, and transformative dialogue.
Strategic Government Priorities: A Blueprint for Business Schools
The three core priorities outlined in the government’s Medium-Term Development Plan provide clear direction for business schools to align their curricula and research focus areas:
- Driving inclusive growth and job creation
- Reducing poverty and tackling the high cost of living
- Building a capable, ethical, and developmental state
A key highlight from SONA was the government’s urgent call to achieve economic growth of over 3%, supported by regulatory reforms, technological advancements, and strategic investment attraction. Business schools must respond by equipping professionals with the necessary skills and knowledge to support national development goals.
Skills Development: Aligning Business Education with National Needs
President Ramaphosa highlighted R940 billion in infrastructure investment, underscoring the need for skilled professionals to manage and implement large-scale projects effectively. Business schools have a critical role in bridging the skills gap by integrating essential competencies into short learning programmes (SLPs) and formal degree curricula, including:
- Ethical leadership and infrastructure governance (strategic thinking, multimedia communication, data literacy)
- Digital technology and innovation
- Big data and machine learning
- Green finance management and sustainability strategies
- Green manufacturing value chain management
- Blended finance instruments and strategies
- Project management for infrastructure development
- Spatial transformation management
- Multilingual business communication
- Rural supply chain management
Additionally, SLPs tailored to local economic development in coastal towns and rural areas can empower SMEs and government entities to leverage emerging opportunities, such as those created by the Water Amendment Bill.
Engaged Scholarship: Research Opportunities for MBA, MBL, and Doctoral Candidates
SONA 2025 has unveiled fertile ground for academic research, particularly in modernizing South Africa’s local government. The upcoming White Paper on Local Government aims to establish a fit-for-purpose municipal model, providing research themes for business scholars, including:
- Performance indicators for modern local government
- Challenges facing South African municipalities in the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions
- Effective structuring of cooperative governance
- Lessons from the Presidential eThekwini District Development Model
- Institutionalizing the National Dialogue to foster inclusive growth
Additionally, the government’s commitment to reviewing the municipality funding model opens research avenues in green finance, blended finance, and infrastructure finance modeling to create sustainable revenue streams.
AfCFTA and Business Education: Unlocking Intra-Africa Trade Potential
With South Africa moving toward full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), business schools must play a pivotal role in equipping SMEs and policymakers with intra-Africa trade expertise. The AfCFTA presents vast market expansion opportunities, and research is needed to explore:
- South Africa’s competitive advantages within AfCFTA
- Strategies for policymakers and businesses to maximize trade benefits
- Overcoming infrastructure deficits and institutional inefficiencies
- Creating an inclusive growth framework aligned with Agenda 2063
Time for Action
SONA 2025 signals a shift from rhetoric to action. South African business schools must step up to provide the skills, research, and expertise needed to support the government’s inclusive growth and job creation agenda.
As the President emphasized, the time for shouting is over—now is the time to engage critically, think strategically, and prepare South Africans to drive the next phase of national development.
Follow Joburg ETC on Facebook, Twitter , TikTok and Instagram
For more News in Johannesburg, visit joburgetc.com
