The extent of South African schools’ preparedness to counteract 4IR challenges: learners’ perspectives

The aim of this paper was to explore learners’ perspectives on how their schools are preparing them to prosper in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) era which is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Taking cognisance of the learners’ perspectives on how South African schools are preparing them is essential for enabling the education fraternity to ascertain its level of effectiveness and efficiency hence improving its state of readiness to face the challenges of the 4IR. Therefore, the exploration of the level of preparedness, in line with 4IR challenges, can assist educational policy makers and planners to be more proactive and craft mechanisms to ameliorate the obstacles and discrepancies inhibiting the acquisition of the 21st century educational competences and skills. Employing a qualitative paradigm, semi-structured focus group interviews were used to solicit data from a sample of 30 grade 10 and 11 learners. Findings reveal that computer technology was irregularly and insignificantly used indicating that South African schools are highly ineffective in dispensing grade-appropriate skills thus producing ill-prepared learners to prosper in the 4IRworld of work