Building the Foundation for Sustainable Employability
Study 1: When School Feels Like a Drag — It Affects More Than Just Grades
A study published in Frontiers in Psychology reveals that academic boredom doesn't just hurt performance — it chips away at learners' overall happiness and well-being.
Bekker, Rothmann, and Kloppers surveyed 544 high school learners in Gauteng, South Africa, exploring how boredom in English and mathematics connects to burnout, engagement, and life satisfaction. Several factors predicted classroom boredom: speaking Afrikaans at home, poor previous exam results, caregivers unable to assist with homework, and disliking the teacher.
The findings revealed a clear chain reaction — boredom triggered increased burnout and reduced engagement, which in turn lowered learners' overall life satisfaction. A disengaged learner in the classroom is often an unhappy young person outside of it.
Keeping learners emotionally connected to their subjects — through relatable teaching, home support, and positive teacher relationships — isn't just good pedagogy. It's essential for their mental health.
A bored learner is rarely just bored.
The details of the article are as follows: Bekker, C.I., Rothmann, S. & Kloppers, M.M. (2023). The happy learner: Effects of academic boredom, burnout, and engagement. Frontiers in Psychology. 13:974486. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.974486
Watch a video about the study’s findings here.
Study 2: Not All Learners Are the Same — And It's Time Schools Acted Like It
Building on earlier findings linking classroom boredom to learner unhappiness, a new study published in Sustainability (2024) by Bekker, Rothmann, Kloppers, and Chen identified five distinct burnout-engagement profiles among 544 Grade 9 and 10 South African learners:
• Healthy Engaged — thriving and motivated (10.66%)
• Moderately Balanced — doing reasonably well (27.57%)
• Slightly Disengaged — beginning to drift (30.7%)
• Moderately Burned-Out — struggling (20.4%)
• Burned-Out — exhausted (10.66%)
Only one in ten learners fell into the healthiest category. Boredom was consistently higher among burned-out profiles, confirming it as an early warning signal.
Two protective forces emerged across all profiles: positive teacher relationships and genuine interest in the subject. A stable home study environment proved equally important.
The researchers propose sustainable, policy-embedded interventions aligned with the UN's SDGs — because these profiles are not fixed destinies.
The details of the article are as follows: Bekker, C.I.; Rothmann, S.; Kloppers, M.M.; Chen, S. Promoting Sustainable Well-Being: Burnout and Engagement in South African Learners. Sustainability 2024, 16, 8518. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16198518
Watch a video about the study’s findings here.
Study 3: It Takes a Village — And Science Just Proved It
A study published in the South African Journal of Psychology (2024) by Narainsamy, Rothmann, and Hoffman surveyed 770 Grade 10 and 11 learners from previously disadvantaged schools, identifying five social support profiles:
• Weakly Supported — low support from all sources
• Adult-Supported — strong parent and teacher ties, limited peer support
• Peer-Supported — close friendships, but lacking adult guidance
• Moderately Supported — reasonable across the board
• Integrated Support — high support from parents, teachers, and friends simultaneously
Learners with integrated support reported the highest flourishing levels. Those weakly supported recorded the lowest well-being scores — navigating adolescence largely alone.
Crucially, no single source of support could substitute for another. It is the combination of all three that proves most powerful — a finding especially significant in previously disadvantaged schools facing compounding structural inequalities.
The message is clear: strengthening one pillar of support is good. Strengthening all three is transformative.
The details of the article are as follows: Narainsamy, K., Rothmann, S., & Hoffman, J. (2024). Social support and well-being of adolescent learners: A latent profile analysis. South African Journal of Psychology. 54(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/00812463241265239
Watch a video about the study’s findings here.
The three studies carry a powerful message of hope: the right relationships, environments, and interventions don't just help learners cope today — they build the resilience, engagement, and motivation that sustainable employability demands tomorrow.
