Resting on the southern tip of Africa is a country with a turbulent past, and a conflicting present. However, it has the potential to create a future that is peaceful and prosperous with the right leadership; that will deal with issues regarding public health, education, and political instability.

We cannot build a prosperous nation without considering education and its powerful impact on society. The fundamental stage of this is literacy. Although South Africa scores an impressive 95 % on the literacy rate (Anon., 2023) ; the latest PIRLS(progress international reading literacy study) concluded that 81% of grade 4 learners in the country cannot read with meaning (Hannah Edwards, 2023) . An online magazine called The Mail and Guardian stated:” Education does not occur in a vacuum”; this means for us to reach success in this regard, it has to be a collaborative effort between the school and the learner's home life. Learning should not end in the classroom. Government must educate parents on the importance of reading and overall learning at home as well as how to approach the issue with patience and gentleness to foster zealous learners. As human beings, we are driven by an incentive to complete certain tasks, this notion is no different from children. We can incentivize reading by providing reading competitions (that have beneficial prizes that will help with school and play). The competition will test memory and of course understanding. This can be written or oral. It should also be available in various South African official languages including Braille and South African Sign language. It can be in partnership with local libraries, providing the venue for the competitions.

Schools can include a merit system: the number of books a learner reads in a school term and successfully answers a list of questions about it, will be rewarded with merits. At the end of the year, the learner with the most literacy merits per grade will be rewarded with a bigger award such as a trophy or medal. Reading especially with meaning has numerous benefits such as keeping your mind engaged preventing a decrease in cognitive ability, helping people be more empathetic towards one another, and increasing brain power (Rebecca Joy Stanbrough, 2019) .

The completion of matriculation (national senior certificate) or its equivalent should be a legal obligation in South Africa. An article published by Business Tech established that there were approximately 6.1 million unemployed people in the fourth quarter of 2018;57% of them did not finish matric (Staff Writer, 2019) . An article published by Webber Wentzel indicated that the fourth industrial revolution poses a threat to most repetitive manual jobs (Kirsten Eisher, 2019).

The Department of basic education has stated that the dropout rate in the country is between 42-56% (Colin Willbesi, 2022) . Risk behaviors such as substance abuse contribute greatly to this statistic (Anon., n.d.) . This is why greater emphasis must be on healthy leisure activities such as sports and culture. The government needs to provide resources to bring this to fruition and inform parents of how beneficial this will be in keeping their children in school and contributing to their overall growth and emotional well-being. It also indicated that 28% of high schoolers in the senior phase leave school due to a lack of financial resources. As much as the South African government has done a plausible job at offering no-fee schools in townships and rural areas and giving parents discounts in town schools. Attendance of school (in the financial aspect) is not only reliant on school fees. Learners need stationery, school uniform, books, and lunch. Stationery packs need to be distributed on a consistent basis, vouchers for uniform shops need to be provided and lunch box programs offering basic sandwiches and healthy snacks need to be the norm. A further 11,1% of learners drop out due to satisfaction with the grade attained. There needs to be a serious emphasis on advising learners of the negative implications of leaving school so soon. How this will exacerbate the unemployment rate especially

due to artificial intelligence.

Health care in South Africa is divided into two parts: the private sector and the severely understaffed and overcrowded public sector. Over 70% of the population uses the latter (Russel Brand, 2017) . Patients must wait in long queues for edications, consultation, hospital beds and to be admitted for surgery. One of the ways to mitigate this is to place medicinal vending machines in clinics, hospitals, and local health centers for chronic medications as opposed to contributing to public hospital congestion. Approximately 5% of the South African health budget is spent on mental health (Anon., 2023) . The faculty of health sciences at the University of Cape Town concluded that only three provinces out of the nine had a child psychiatrist and that certain psychiatric medications were seldom available. The government needs to prioritize mental health in its budget (as it affects most aspects of life). There needs to be an increase in public psychiatric hospitals and provide attractive benefits to keep more healthcare professionals working in the public sector. On average it costs R900 to R1145 per hour to see a clinical psychologist in South Africa (Anon., n.d.). In a country with a high unemployment and inequality rate, an alternative must be offered. The government needs to provide vouchers or discounts for people to attend in-person counseling from private psychologists. This will allow more people to be attended to more efficiently.

Corruption continues to plague South Africa in all aspects of society. It is important that it does not get to the point where it is accepted nor normalized as seen in new democracies such as in Latin America (William Gumede, 2017) . Nepotism and favoritism account for 13% of corruption in the country (Luke Fraser, 2023). Transparency in the procurement of tenders and job vacancies is more paramount than ever. This will allow the general public to check whether the skills of an applicant match the job description at hand. Whistleblowers need to be better protected through policy and improving the witness protection program. Lastly, lifestyle audits need to take place regularly for members of parliament. Our commitment to tackling problems effectively in public health, education, and politics will surely lead us to a prosperous and peaceful nation for all South Africans. It will be challenging. However, if we all contribute to improving this country, we will surely reap the benefits.

Written by Otlotleng Molelekedi.

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