Images of school children pulling brightly coloured, branded wheelie bags-cum-desks did the rounds in the media, eliciting praise and criticism. The innovative school bag is made from hard plastic, with durable wheels, and converts into a desk and chair with a solar light. Called MiDesk, the invention was taken up by three large companies as part of their corporate social investment (CSI) programmes and has enabled primary school children in Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap to shuttle their own desks between home and school.
While the ingenuity of the invention has been applauded, it has also highlighted the education department’s failure to provide even basic school furniture: 1 million learners in SA reportedly don’t have a desk at school. In addition, there are also concerns about the corporate branding of the donated desks (‘turning kids into walking billboards’), exacerbated by potential obesity and health issues as some branding promotes a fast-food chain.
CSI is not a substitute for government responsibility, warned a group of 22 civil society organisations that voiced these concerns in February. ‘The government must strengthen regulations around corporate social investments to ensure that they are ethical, transparent, and not transactional,’ they said. ‘Ethical corporate support should strengthen and be subordinate to, not substitute, the state’s obligations to learners.’
Implemented strategically and in line with government policy, CSI can have a powerful, lasting impact that ideally creates shared value, where the corporate also benefits.
Strategic CSI is also important for SA’s underperforming public education sector, which has historically attracted far more CSI than other development sectors in the country, according to research by CSI consultancy Trialogue. SA’s total estimated CSI spend was R12.7 billion in 2024, with 92% of companies directing CSI into education – from early childhood development (ECD) through to tertiary education.
‘While basic education is absolutely vital, tertiary education is equally critical for South Africa’s long-term development. It provides the skills, research and leadership needed to build a prosperous and equitable society,’ says Feryal Domingo, acting executive director of Inyathelo at the South African Institute for Advancement.
A key goal of this non-profit organisation is to strengthen higher education institutions to build a vibrant democracy. At the time of writing, Inyathelo’s ninth Annual Survey of Philanthropy in Higher Education (ASPIHE) was about to be published, covering 2022 and 2023 data. ‘CSI is a significant source of funding for higher education,’ says Domingo. ‘In the ASPIHE survey, CSI contributions would likely be captured under categories such as Corporate Trusts and Foundations, as many corporations establish their own charitable trusts or foundations to manage their CSI activities, as well as under Direct Corporate Giving, because some companies provide direct grants or sponsorships to universities without going through a separate trust.’
She adds that the ASPIHE survey focuses on the flow of philanthropic funds into higher education and tracks the contributions made by corporations, regardless of whether they are labelled ‘CSI’ or ‘philanthropy’.
There is, however, a notable difference between the two terms. Trialogue refers to philanthropy as a welfarist approach and as charitable giving that addresses immediate social needs. CSI, which started out with a philanthropic mindset, has evolved into something increasingly strategic and investment-focused, aiming to create shared value and long-term benefits. In future, CSI is moving towards what the consultancy calls ‘leveraged CSI’ or ‘CSI 3.0’, where giving becomes core to the business, emphasising multi-stakeholder involvement and collective impact initiatives.
An example of shared value is the Discovery Fund, a strategic pillar of the CSI efforts of financial services and medical aid provider Discovery. Andronica Mabuya, Discovery’s head of CSI, says the fund ‘has made significant strides in enhancing human capabilities, reducing infant and maternal mortality, protecting the most vulnerable in our society and bolstering state health resources over its 20 plus years’.
The fund supports an average of 18 organisations a year. Four are dedicated to HIV/Aids prevention, treatment and care, and reducing its prevalence. ‘These organisations – Hlokomela (14 years), HIV SA (11 years), Choice Trust (7 years), and Witkoppen Health & Welfare Centre (22 years) – have collectively received more than R6.7 million in funding for the 2024/2025 financial year,’ she says.
While Trialogue notes a steady increase in support for ECD – which received on average just under a third (31%) of education spend in 2024 (an increase from 26% in 2023 and 18% in 2014) – and the support for school-level education (42%) stayed in line with previous years, the education spend on tertiary education has dropped, from 27% in 2023 to 23% in 2024.
‘It’s no secret that the basic education challenges faced by most learners within our public schooling system often leave them poorly prepared for the demands of the tertiary education space,’ says Setlogane Manchidi, head of CSI at Investec. ‘Among some of these known challenges leading to poor matric learner performance year after year are a high number of dysfunctional schools, inadequately qualified educators especially in maths and science, overcrowding in classrooms and incompletion of the syllabus, to name a few. As a result, many high school leavers are academically inadequately prepared to not only gain access but to also subsequently perform within tertiary institutions.’
To address this, Investec is among the companies that have made tertiary education support a key focus of their CSI. In SA, most of this support comes in the form of bursaries, scholarships and university chairs (which all received an average 24% of education spend in 2024, similar to previous years, according to Trialogue). Yet, many young people need help transitioning from matric to post-school education and training, in order ‘to avoid the mismatch between pursued careers and the much-needed skill sets that enable their eventual active economic participation,’ says Manchidi. He refers to a 2024 notice by the Department of Higher Education and Training, which stated that the levels of education–job mismatches in SA were very high, with 51.7% of SA workers employed in an occupation for which they don’t have the correct education level and a further 28.7% being underqualified for the jobs they do.
To better prepare school leavers, Investec and Pokello Education and Training Solutions recently improved their CareerXplora – a CSI platform that offers career guidance with a live chat service that is available through a website, social media and WhatsApp. Learners can access personalised, one-on-one guidance and support from registered career counsellors, psychologists and psychometrists, at no cost to them. Furthermore, they can find information about the country’s tertiary institutions, their faculties, qualifications and course requirements, as well as funding options, such as the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, a range of scholarship and bursary opportunities and study loans.
The interest in bursaries is huge: Study Trust, which manages bursaries for the First Rand Empowerment Foundation, Investec and Old Mutual Investment’s Imfundo Trust Scholarship, among others, received a total pool of 16 803 applications for the current academic year. By filling in one company’s application, students effectively also apply for other bursaries administered by Study Trust. Only 4 356 applicants met Investec’s minimum requirements, with 70 shortlisted and invited for a three-day bursary selection process. In January, 37 candidates received bursaries upon receipt of their final academic results.
Holistic bursary initiatives are essential to reduce university dropout rates, provide more opportunity to underprivileged students, and curb youth unemployment, according to Shamiso Chideme, senior client relationship manager at Tshikululu Social Investments. ‘A holistic approach to bursaries is not just about tuition; it’s also about accommodation, meals, utilities, transport, learning tools such as books and laptops, and critically, psychosocial support,’ she writes in an online post. ‘These are the all-important elements that students from vulnerable backgrounds need in order to enhance their performance, and social investors need to factor in comprehensive bursary management to bursary initiatives.’
Ideally, bursary programmes should go beyond universities and cover TVET colleges, says Chideme. This would address the massive challenge of ‘NEETs’ (young people who are ‘not in education, employment, or training’). ‘Our youth are at a loss and struggling to find any opportunities,’ she says. ‘There are excellent [TVET] programmes that offer work readiness within the psychosocial support element, which are essential to get youth economically active. But if they don’t receive support, like financial systems to pursue their tertiary education, it leaves them idle. And then social investors lose out on that potential of their having the opportunity to contribute to the economy.’
She cites Anglo American Platinum’s holistic bursaries as a stand-out example, because they are not performance linked and recipients don’t necessarily have to be top of their class. Other corporates offering TVET bursaries include Sasol, Shoprite, Eskom and Transnet.
Many companies direct CSI towards teacher training, where qualified teachers are supported and developed to improve the academic outcomes of their learners.
The Capitec Foundation’s Future Teacher programme is doing this differently by targeting aspiring teachers during the critical years of their preparation. It starts by equipping third- and fourth-year Bachelor of Education students with essential maths content knowledge and then employing selected graduates in the foundation’s partner school tech hubs. The programme also nurtures soft skills such as self-esteem, motivation, emotional resilience and classroom management, to develop educators who can effectively teach even in challenging classroom environments.
Other impactful CSI initiatives in higher education include mining company Sibanye-Stillwater’s investment of R43 million in the construction of a new ‘Simulacrum’ underground mining training facility at the University of Johannesburg; Telkom’s involvement in the Future Tech programme to co-fund technology research grants and the studies of postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows; and the FirstRand Empowerment Foundation’s renewal of its partnership to support the Black Academics Advancement programme.
Ultimately, the success of CSI efforts in higher education depends on whether ECD and basic education are effective and functioning; therefore, it’s paramount to co-ordinate CSI programmes – with government and other players – across the entire education spectrum to ensure maximum impact.
