Research reported in this article investigated the effectiveness of collaborative effort between schools to bridge the existing gaps that erupted during the outbreak of COVID-19. There are gaps in teaching and learning within the previously privileged institutions and the marginalised institutions in South Africa. Such gaps might have a negative impact on how teaching and learning are conducted. The purpose of this article was to investigate the creative and constructive ways of managing the anxiety related to socio-economic impacts in schools, amongst which were the introduction of online teaching and learning technologies, new methodologies and contents. This article is underpinned by the concepts of the establishment of advantageous strategies for collaboration, knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. Qualitative document analysis has been adopted as a methodology to collect information for this study. The outbreak of COVID-19 has evoked inequalities amongst the communities. However, the re-opening of schools exacerbated multiple challenges. While teaching and learning is the centre of the education project in South Africa, which the country has to adapt to, most institutions were faced with a number of challenges. This study’s major finding revealed that collaboration is synergistic and can bring out the best contribution that might currently perceive partnership within the school system. This article recommends ways of bridging the gap between schools through developing partnerships between institutions through cross-fertilisation.

Education is generally considered to be the core source of individuals’ better life and countries' economic and social development. Consequently, attending university and getting high qualifications are perceived as tools that generate and enhance economic growth. The current study aimed to analyse the effect of various educational levels on South African economic growth. The study employed quarterly data from 1995Q1 to 2021Q4. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was employed to assess both long-run and short-run relationships among variables. The long-run results revealed that people who completed their grade 12 (with matric certificate) and bachelor's degrees contribute positively to South African economic growth. However, honours and higher degrees (master's and PhD) were found to have an inverse relationship with economic growth in South Africa. On the other hand, the short-run relationship indicated that all education levels contribute to economic growth in the short term. Based on these findings, the author suggests that the South African higher education curriculum should be revised as the negative effect of high education towards economic growth should be resulting in growing unemployment and graduates waiting to be employed rather than creating jobs themselves. Additionally, increasing job creation for graduates with higher qualifications would reduce the number of graduates that leave the country looking for employment abroad.