Young people won the right to learn. Why are they still fighting for the right to work?
Every year, Youth Day asks South Africa to remember the courage of young people who stood against a system designed to limit their future. The young people of 1976 were not only protesting a language policy. They were rejecting an education system that prepared black children for a life of restricted opportunity.
Nearly five decades later, the laws have changed. The language has changed. The promises have changed. But for too many young South Africans, the outcome remains painfully familiar: they are still being educated into exclusion.
The crisis is not only unemployment. It is the collapse of the bridge between learning and earning.
According to Stats SA’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, South Africa’s youth unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 34 stands at 45.8%. Among young people aged 15 to 24, it is 60.9%. These figures are often repeated, and perhaps that is part of the problem. They have become so familiar that they risk losing their shock.
