“We can’t keep writing ourselves off. At some point we need to start investing in the human capital that will put us at the forefront of the knowledge economy.”

Weltman, who completed her PhD at Columbia University under renowned string theorist Brian Greene and a post-doctoral fellowship at Cambridge under none other than Stephen Hawking, says part of South Africa’s apparent poor performance in international education ratings is that there are extremes in its society.

SA’s future could be written in the stars