Afrika Tikkun's Top Achievers Prove Collaboration Is Key To Breaking Cycles Of Poverty

Afrika Tikkun’s Class of 2025 achieves 94% pass rate—demonstrating how strategic partnerships and holistic support unlock potential in South Africa's most underserved communities

Johannesburg, 23 January 2026 – While South Africa's education system continues to grapple with deep-rooted inequality, Afrika Tikkun's Matric Class of 2025 has delivered results that prove what becomes possible when comprehensive support meets collaborative investment.

The organisation's after-school programme achieved an outstanding 94% pass rate - a significant increase from last year's 90% - outperforming the national average by more than 6%.

Equally impressive, 61% of learners qualified for Bachelor's degree admission, maintaining last year's benchmark while the national rate declined from 48% to 46%. Across 1061 students from our outreach partner schools and Africa Tikkun centres in Alexandra, Diepsloot, Orange Farm, Braamfontein, and Mfuleni, the Class of 2025 earned 443 distinctions, a remarkable increase from last year’s 252 distinctions.

Not just statistics

These results are not just statistics. They represent young people who've navigated food insecurity, under-resourced schools, and the daily weight of poverty to achieve academic excellence, made possible by a development model that refuses to separate education from the lived realities of those it serves.

"What sets our learners apart isn't just determination, it's access to the comprehensive and holistic support systems that poverty typically denies them," says Tiyani Mohlaba, Chief Operations Officer Afrika Tikkun Foundation. "Every one of these results represent a young person whose resilience and dedication has prevailed in the face of adversity. This is the power of our Cradle-to-Career 360° model, from preschool to primary school, high school, and post-matriculation, Afrika Tikkun addresses barriers that stands between potential and achievement."

Afrika Tikkun's three-decade track record demonstrates that academic intervention alone cannot overcome systemic inequality. The after-school programme empowers learners aged 7 to eighteen in a development ecosystem that includes educational support, leadership development, arts and sports programming, career guidance, and critically - psychosocial services and family support that create the stability required for learning to take place.

"Our approach recognises a truth that traditional education often ignores. You cannot educate a hungry child, you cannot teach a traumatised teenager, and you cannot prepare a young person for the workplace if their home environment is in crisis," adds Mohlaba.

It does not end there, the progarmme extends beyond the after-school programme into Afrika Tikkun's Skills Development Programme, where exceptional matriculants receive bursaries funded by corporate partners, enabling them to pursue tertiary education or specialised training aligned with labour market demands.

Investment, Not Charity – The Partnership Imperative

Afrika Tikkun's leadership emphasises that this year's results reflect more than organisational excellence—they demonstrate the return on investment that strategic partnerships deliver.

"Our corporate partners and donors understand something critical: they're not funding charity, they're building South Africa's future workforce," says Mohlaba. "When they invest in comprehensive youth development - from early childhood nutrition to post-matric skills training - they're creating the pipeline of talented, disciplined and work-ready professionals that our economy desperately needs. These 2025 results are their return: young people ready to enter universities, colleges, and workplaces with both the technical skills and the resilience that employers demand."

Mohlaba is clear that scale requires collaboration beyond what any single sector can deliver. With South Africa's youth unemployment exceeding 60%, the organisation positions its model as both social transformation and economic strategy.

Government policy sets the framework, but cannot resource every gap. Corporate investment brings funding and workplace pathways but needs implementation partners on the ground. NGOs like Afrika Tikkun provide the infrastructure and expertise but require sustained funding to scale. The magic happens when these sectors collaborate around a shared goal: preparing South Africa’s young people not just to survive, but to lead our economic future.”

For more information, visit www.afrikatikkun.org.