Doreen Kosi
Pretoria - Our young people, as the dominant age group, are facing a lot of challenges in a country that is constantly in a state of flux, yet we continue to see some of these challenges being overcome by young women and men.
While some prosper and manage to find the light at the end of the tunnel, there are those who still struggle to even reach the tunnel.
After Human Rights Month (March), we need to think of the constitutional rights of our young people that are not met, such as the failure to be afforded equal opportunity in entrepreneurship or employment.
Similarly, Human Rights Day on March 21 was an emotive day as it reminded us of how many inspiring young people took to the streets of Sharpeville in 1960.
More than six decades later, we still see incessant headlines about the triple challenges of inequality, poverty, and unemployment. The last, to some extent, is linked to the first two scourges. This link has dire ramifications for South Africa, with other worrying crimes such as gender-based violence, murder, and robbery.
Young people, an age group largely affected by unemployment, are increasingly growing despondent about their job prospects.
Though Statistics SA records the employment age as 16 years, the legal employment age is 18. In Stats SA’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, for the fourth quarter of 2022, “youth aged 15-24 years and 25-34 years recorded the highest unemployment rates, of 61.0% and 39.9%, respectively”.
These statistics also reveal how most young people have since lost any desire to actively seek employment.
We need to see a reduction of these discouraging statistics, and the first step would be to see the private sector getting more involved with solutions, even those curated towards the redefinition of public-private partnerships.
This cannot be accepted and taken as business as usual, and as yet another day in a South Africa that seeks to normalise youth inequality and how they are ostracised from being active economic participants.
Some business leaders have been quick to point out all the policy and lack of implementation faults within the government.
In the past few years, however, they have been doing more, beyond mere boardroom talk, to support the government and communities.
South African corporates acknowledge, alongside the government, that young people need urgent assistance from the private sector. They realise solutions to the county’s unemployment crisis can earnestly begin with a much-needed investment in youth leadership development.
Young people know and appreciate key elements associated with institutional memory but maintain that does not mean they should not be allowed to lead, particularly on a widespread challenge such as youth unemployment, which is a ticking time bomb that equally threatens our social security and social cohesion.
A different approach is definitely needed to deal with unemployment. An approach that would appreciate the current schooling system’s shortfalls, which continue to lead to high dropout levels of young kids whose education journey can be traced from Grade 1 to matric.
These are the burning issues the private sector should be preoccupied with and making suggestions on how to participate in an endeavour to produce superior matriculants; and who can chip in as solutions are urgently needed towards economic growth.
This different approach, which the private sector should by now be aware of, is one where businesses’ involvement goes beyond offering a bursary.
It may be prudent to further look where such a talented matriculant comes from and how practical investments can be made into such an area, with an eye not only on uncovering smart learners but how this same cohort of pupils could be economically active in the area they come from.
* Kosi is the chairperson of the New LoveLife Trust Board.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
Pretoria News