The Department of Basic Education has confirmed that all schools in South Africa will open on January 15 next year for the 2025 academic year. This marks the continuation of the unified start date-oriented system introduced in 2024, as opposed to previously when inland schools opened earlier than their coastal counterparts.
Unified Start Dates for Schools
For 2024, the school opening dates nationwide were going to be the same by the department and are going to carry that into 2025. With this change, the department hopes to make scheduling easy and seamless when schools open at the beginning of an academic year.
Explaining the move, department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said, “It is important not to allow the school year to start late-in this case, the very last week in January-because the result is the postponement of all terms.” The Department evaluates the policy each year and has now planned around the number of school days available in the national calendar. “The idea is to make sure that there is no loss of school days allocated,” he added.
The 2025 School Calendar
They divided the school year of 2025 into four terms that will avail a balanced schedule and provide proper breaks for learners and educators:
- Term 1: 15 January to 28 March with a 10-day holiday (29 March- 7 April).
- Term 2: 8 April to 17 June with a winter holiday from 18 June to 8 July.
- Term 3: 22 July to 3 October and this also includes a mid-term break: 6-10 October.
- Term 4: 13 October to 10 December. It shows how well the academic year has been structured by the department toward intensifying the teaching and learning time.
