section_path: Demographics/Education
section_name: Education
paragraph_text: Education
  
  The adult literacy rate in 2025 was 95%. This was the second-highest in Africa, behind only Seychelles. South Africa has a three-tier system of education starting with primary school, followed by high school, and tertiary education in the form of (academic) universities and universities of technology. Learners have twelve years of formal schooling, from grade 1 to 12. Grade R, or grade 0, is a pre-primary foundation year. Primary schools span the first seven years of schooling. High school education spans a further five years. The National Senior Certificate examination takes place at the end of grade 12 and is necessary for tertiary studies at a South African university. Public universities are divided into three types: traditional universities, which offer theoretically oriented university degrees; universities of technology (formerly called technikons), which offer vocationally-oriented diplomas and degrees; and comprehensive universities, which offer both types of qualification. There are 23 public universities in South Africa: 11 traditional universities, 6 universities of technology, and 6 comprehensive universities. There are also a large amount of FET (Further Education and Training) and TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) colleges in South Africa.
  
  Under apartheid, schools for black people were subject to discrimination through inadequate funding and a separate syllabus called Bantu Education which only taught skills sufficient to work as labourers.
  
  In 2004, South Africa started reforming its tertiary education system, merging and incorporating small universities into larger institutions, and renaming all tertiary education institutions "university". By 2015, 1.4 million students in higher education have been aided by a financial aid scheme which was promulgated in 1999.