#041 The Future Is Ours: Climate Change, Children's Rights, and Education in South Africa
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Young climate activists speak truth to power on education and climate
Two teenage climate activists from Cape Town's Black Girls Rising organisation sit down with education law researcher Motheo Brody to expose how climate change is already violating children's right to basic education in South Africa - and what must urgently change. This episode is essential listening for young people, parents, teachers, policymakers, and lawmakers who need to understand that climate adaptation of the basic education system is not optional: it is a legal and moral obligation.
Sixteen-year-old Likhanyise and fifteen-year-old Busani describe learning in shipping container classrooms that reach unbearable temperatures, school entrances flooded so badly that learners must bail water with buckets before class can begin, days missed because roads are impassable, and the hidden toll that heat and water shortages take on concentration, health, and exam performance. Their testimony is a ground-level account of what the UNESCO Chair on Education, Law and Africa at the University of Pretoria has confirmed in research: some South African classrooms hit 40 degrees Celsius, and academic performance drops sharply as a result.
The episode unpacks the findings of two landmark reports from the UNESCO Chair's Climate Justice in Education project. The first audit of the CAPS curriculum from Grade R to Grade 12 found climate change appears as a topic almost exclusively in Grade 9 Natural Sciences - with no meaningful climate justice perspective, no discussion of gendered impacts, no treatment of inequality or human rights, and no call to action. The second report examines South Africa's constitutional and international legal obligations to climate-proof the basic education system, drawing on the Climate Change Act (commenced March 2025), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and UN Committee General Comment 26 on children's rights and the environment.
Likhanyise and Busani also speak directly to the participation paradox: rights designed for children, made without children. Their challenge to adult decision-makers - lawmakers, curriculum designers, school authorities, and government officials - is clear: include us, speak our language, and stop making decisions on behalf of the people most affected. For anyone who wants to understand what urgent, rights-based climate adaptation of South African schools must look like, and why young people must be at the centre of that process, this conversation is the place to start.
Two teenage climate activists from Cape Town's Black Girls Rising organisation sit down with education law researcher Motheo Brody to expose how climate change is already violating children's right to basic education in South Africa - and what must urgently change. This episode is essential listening for young people, parents, teachers, policymakers, and lawmakers who need to understand that climate adaptation of the basic education system is not optional: it is a legal and moral obligation.
Sixteen-year-old Likhanyise and fifteen-year-old Busani describe learning in shipping container classrooms that reach unbearable temperatures, school entrances flooded so badly that learners must bail water with buckets before class can begin, days missed because roads are impassable, and the hidden toll that heat and water shortages take on concentration, health, and exam performance. Their testimony is a ground-level account of what the UNESCO Chair on Education, Law and Africa at the University of Pretoria has confirmed in research: some South African classrooms hit 40 degrees Celsius, and academic performance drops sharply as a result.
The episode unpacks the findings of two landmark reports from the UNESCO Chair's Climate Justice in Education project. The first audit of the CAPS curriculum from Grade R to Grade 12 found climate change appears as a topic almost exclusively in Grade 9 Natural Sciences - with no meaningful climate justice perspective, no discussion of gendered impacts, no treatment of inequality or human rights, and no call to action. The second report examines South Africa's constitutional and international legal obligations to climate-proof the basic education system, drawing on the Climate Change Act (commenced March 2025), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and UN Committee General Comment 26 on children's rights and the environment.
Likhanyise and Busani also speak directly to the participation paradox: rights designed for children, made without children. Their challenge to adult decision-makers - lawmakers, curriculum designers, school authorities, and government officials - is clear: include us, speak our language, and stop making decisions on behalf of the people most affected. For anyone who wants to understand what urgent, rights-based climate adaptation of South African schools must look like, and why young people must be at the centre of that process, this conversation is the place to start.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction and Welcome
- 01:07 Meet Likhanyise and Busani
- 02:00 Climate Change as a Children's Rights Issue
- 03:11 The UNESCO Chair Research: Climate-Proofing Schools
- 04:25 The South African Climate Change Act
- 05:07 What the CAPS Curriculum Audit Found
- 06:16 If You Had a Magic Wand
- 07:55 Living It: Heat, Floods, and School Disruption
- 10:25 Research Confirms: Heat Hits Learning Hard
- 11:34 How Young People Are Coping
- 13:35 Inequality in Climate Impacts Between Schools
- 15:08 When Schools Were Closed by Floods
- 17:07 Is the Curriculum Teaching Enough About Climate Change?
- 19:34 What Should Be Added to the Curriculum
- 21:02 Redesigning Schools to Be Climate-Resilient
- 23:25 Who Gets to Decide? Children's Participation Rights
- 27:00 How Government Should Involve Young People
- 28:43 Final Messages to Adults: The Future Is Ours
