Primestars executive director and CEO Martin Sweet with leader and founder of ActionSA party Herman Mashaba at the celebratory event to mark 21 years of Primestars. Photo: Zanele Siso of Zanephoto

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Twenty-one years ago, Primestars was nothing, but an idea and a spark of ambition lit by passion, purpose, and a bold belief that education could be made more accessible, more inspiring, and more transformative for the learners.

These were the profound words of Primestars executive director and CEO Martin Sweet when he opened the celebratory party of achievements as Primestars came of age. “Today, we are not just a 21-year-old business that has come of age, we are a movement and a legacy in motion — built on resilience, fuelled by innovation, and driven by extraordinary people who envisioned possibilities and made them realities.

“This milestone is more than a celebration of time. It’s a tribute — to every challenge we’ve faced, every goal we’ve surpassed, and every life we’ve touched. What began as a dream to reimagine learning has grown into a national force that has transformed cinemas into classrooms, learners into leaders, and ideas into a tangible and measurable impact,” Sweet said.

At 21 years young, Sweet said the ‘legacy in motion’ doesn’t just reflect but recommits and honours a mission that has helped South Africa’s youth rise from the schoolroom to the boardroom — with purpose, with possibility, and with power.

“When we started, few believed a cinema could become a maths classroom. Even fewer imagined entrepreneurship taught through film, yet we believed, you believed, and South Africa’s youth proved us right,” Sweet told an audience graced by former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, along with the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training Buti Manamela and legendary singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka and South Africa’s internationally renowned poet Lebo Mashile.

Some of the Primestars projects include eduCate, which is a programme designed to help learners to master maths and science, My Future – My Career which is a careers programme that allows the learners to dream big around their career development, and the Smart Bucks and Rethink Rands project that helps learners gain financial confidence.

Other programmes include helping learners to build businesses through Step Up 2A Start-Up, which is designed not just to produce workers but business minded leaders who can go on to start their own green economy companies around cleaning and saving the environment.

With advent of gender-based violence in the country, Primestars stepped up and initiated a programme to curtail the cancerous violence against women and children, especially girls, known as ‘What About the Boys?’. This programme is modelled around the concept of teaching and raising young boys to become good men and not use their masculinity to the detriment of the girls and women.

Another programme is the nurturing leadership in the learners through the AECI Future Leaders Challenge while at the same time driving career education for tomorrow’s industries. “These aren’t just programmes but blueprints for transformation. Our commitment to the success and evolution of learners remains unwavering, because our purpose is clearly to educate. Inspire and empower,” Sweet said.

Ster-Kinekor staff Luleka Jacobs and Mary Bareng were part of the celebratory party to make 21 years of Primestars. Photo: Zanele Siso of Zanephoto

He lauded the sponsors who stood steadfast around the ideals of the projects and thanked the teachers whom he said, ‘persevere through overwhelming odds, and the learners themselves who refuse to be defined by circumstance’.

More than 1,5 million learners have been impacted and empowered over 21 years not just to succeed, but to lead with courage, uplift with hope, and reimagine what’s possible. For the next 21 years, Sweet asked whether Primestars will be preparing the youth for the world they live in or for one that no longer exists?

“This is because our children are born into a world of AI, automation, and digital disruption. Yet far too many are still being educated for a time of factories, not frontiers. The next 21 years demand future-readiness, where every child knows how to create online, sell online, scale online, and turning talent into income and dreams into opportunity.

“This calls on all of us to turn every smartphone into a startup kit, transform township dreams into tech-powered realities and raise job creators and not just job seekers. To our educators, you are — and have always been — the heart of our mission. Through load-shedding, pandemics, under-resourcing, and adversity — you stood firm. You didn’t just teach but you inspired learners.

“You are now called again into the digital age. AI won’t replace you, but it will challenge you to be bold, to be creative, and to be connected like never before. We’re here to walk that road with you. So, let’s not fear the robot in the room, but let’s give it a little hug. It’s not the end of education but rather the start of a smarter, more inclusive and globally connected future,” Sweet said.

Sweet urged all involved in education to join hands and craft the newest initiative, which is ‘The Game Plan for Success on and off the Field’, which he said should be a bold programme that fuses South Africa’s love of sport with essential business and life skills, from leadership and teamwork to ethics and strategic thinking. “We’re bringing it to life in partnership with Anita Mathews, head of The Sports Trust,” he said.

He said these innovations, digital leadership, teacher transformation, English excellence, inspiring storytelling, and ‘The Game Plan’, all reflect one united mission whose aim is to evolve education, so it truly prepares the youth for the future.

Sweet called on government to make digital education a national imperative, and business to invest, not only in profit, but in purpose, and to parents to raise creators, not just consumers, to teachers to lead the change, both in the classroom and beyond and to the youth not to wait in the wings but to be centre stage, and the moment is now.

Former marketing director of McDonald’s Sechaba Motsieloa meets McDonald’s CEO Greg Solomons at the Primestars 21 st birthday party. Photo: Zanele Siso of Zanephoto