Our education system is failing our children and not preparing them for the working world. As the economy shrinks, the workplace becomes highly competitive and companies start looking for holistically skilled candidates with much more than just a tertiary qualification. A good education is no longer seen as a guarantee of employment. So what about those who do not have access to quality education and why does the private sector see it as a risk to employ first timers and graduates?
Our graduates are fundamentally unskilled and our Labour Relations Act, while great at protecting vulnerable employees from exploitation, makes the employment of inexperienced people extremely risky. In addition, many of our young South Africans have a sense of entitlement, which can lead to mismatched expectations between the youth and prospective employers.
There is a stigma attached to being unemployed and this tends to most affect those from lower income brackets. The education system has failed this demographic and more often than not, they find themselves approaching the labour market with lower levels in literacy, numeracy and communication skills all vital for acquiring sustainable employed. They also have little work experience, which is particularly undesirable for employers. These young people sit outside middleclass privilege and therefore lack strong networks or social capital that allow them to access job opportunities, and tend not to have the finances to enable them to get to where the jobs are.
In addition, when they are employable, they often have unrealistically high wage expectations, which results in long periods of unsuccessful searching.
There has to be a paradigm shift in the minds of our youth and to do this we need to deal with entitlement effectively. Many feel that they will not succeed so they do not even try, while others feel that South Africa owes them their success and that they should start higher up the work chain and not work their way up, making them tricky to employ. Somehow, the system fails in terms of offering our youth an understanding of the importance of hard work and a safe foundation on which they can build their self-esteem.
There are numerous state funded opportunities available to address unemployment in South Africa, including the National Youth Policy, skills development and training programmes, artisan youth centres, upliftment programmes and development projects. These programmes have their place but can lead to additional entitlement because of the ‘give a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish’ philosophy. Do our youth feel entitled because of all the promises that have been made to them? Is the problem one of mind-set or is it the standard of education?
I believe it is both. The bottom line is our youth are not being taught the skills that are required to operate in the real world, with or without tertiary qualifications.
One of the solutions is to arm our youth with skills that help them move from high school or tertiary education to an adult working world. As an example, a portal like EvenMe, an online one stop portal that offers mentorship, life skills, inspiration, aspiration and attainable ‘e-learning’, gives its users a holistic look at entrepreneurship as well as empowering them with the knowledge to start at the bottom and up-skill, even without formal qualifications. These sorts of projects are going to become more and more essential ie, up-skilling programmes that are free and that equip the youth with skills that are necessary for self-improvement and employment. In addition, ideally, they need to be online.
South Africa’s internet audience is growing in leaps and bounds, specifically in the mobile market. When you are speaking to our youth, you need to take your message to where they are at – on their phones. It is rare to see anyone in South Africa between 18-35 without a mobile device. This means that the majority of our youth have the ability to be online. While the cost of data can be a barrier, mobile operators have introduced a zero rating of Educational Data. This is a valuable tool and should be wholeheartedly embraced by up-skilling programmes.
Our youth are the future and the future is bright so long as we can inspire and empower them to get involved. They have the ability to become the economic powerhouses of tomorrow with the right tools and the right basic life skills. We need to build them up and reduce their insecurities by giving them the tools they need to become the best versions of themselves.
