2025 school calendar – including 3 ‘special holidays’

The current calendar for South African public schools shows that there will be an extra three holidays in 2025 thanks to ‘special school holidays’.
The Department of Basic Education has released the proposed school calendar for 2025.
According to the calendar, the 2025 school year will commence on 15 January and conclude on 12 December.
This start date is two days earlier than the 2024 school year, meaning the academic year will consist of 200 school days.
It’s worth noting that 2025 is expected to have 27 standard school holidays, which is an increase from the 25 holidays in 2024.
Despite this increase, the total number of school holidays is still fewer than in previous years.
However, unlike 2024, next year is expected to have three special school holidays. These holidays will be on the following dates:
- Tuesday, 29 April;
- Wednesday, 30 April; and
- Friday, 2 May 2025.
In South Africa, the Department of Basic Education and relevant stakeholders are allowed to grant special school holidays whenever they deem them appropriate.
In 2025, the Department of Basic Education and relevant stakeholders agreed to allow students and teachers a special school holiday during this time due to Freedom Day being observed on Monday, 28 April—despite the official date of the holiday being the 27th.
This is because, According to section 2(1) of the Act, “whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday”.
In the same week, Worker’s Day falls on Thursday, 1 May 2025. This resulted in the Department of Basic Education and relevant stakeholders writing off the whole week by signing off Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday as special school holidays.
The 2025 calendar will also observe six official public holidays during the school term compared to the two observed this year.
This is because most public holidays in 2024 will take place during school holidays.
The department has had to make these changes to the calendar to make up for teaching losses felt during the Covid-19 pandemic, which severely hampered teaching capacity and learner hours.

Other notable changes
The 2025 school year also marks the deadline for the recently re-gazetted regulations that require all schools in the country to meet minimum energy, sanitation, and infrastructure standards—or include them in their active plans—within the next year.
The 2024 regulations were originally gazetted at the end of May but were withdrawn without explanation a week later.
Previously, schools had up to 18 months to meet some of the regulations’ requirements. This has been reduced to 12 months (within 2025).
According to the new regulations, schools without access to power, water, or sanitation will have 12 months (i.e., until mid-2025) to comply with the regulations related to these.
Additionally, School buildings built from mud, asbestos, metal and wood must be replaced with structures that comply with the regulations within 12 months of the gazette being published (i.e., mid-2025).
Schools that also do not have adequate perimeter fencing to comply with the norms and standards have 12 months (mid-2025) to comply.
Read: 29 new laws waiting for Ramaphosa’s signature – including big changes for electricity and schools