The education system is not effectively moving young people 'from learning to earning', the Higher Education Minister warned.
Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela has sounded the alarm over South Africa's deepening youth crisis, revealing that 3.4 million young people are neither in employment nor in education or training.
Delivering the keynote address at the Inside Education Summit at GIBS in Gauteng on Monday, Manamela described the figures as a “lived reality” that reflects a failing system.
“3.4 million young South Africans are not in employment, education or training. This is not a statistic from a report. This is a lived reality,” he said.
He said the country is “waiting for opportunity, waiting for inclusion, waiting for a system that works”.
'Road crisis'
Manamela stressed that South Africa's challenges extend far beyond unemployment.
He said, “Our crisis is not just unemployment. It is a crisis of roads.”
He warned that the education system is not effectively moving young people “from learning to earning… from capability to productivity… from aspiration to dignity”.
Describing the education system as a “pipeline”, the minister said it is currently “leaking” at critical points, from early childhood development to transition to the labor market.
childhood gap persists
Highlighting early childhood development (ECD) as a key pressure point, Manamela said investments were increasing, but results remained uneven.
“The first five years of life set the tone for the next fifty years,” he said.
Despite allocating R18.4 billion to ECD and expanding access to more than 300,000 children, only 42% of children are on track by the age of five.
He warned, “Inequality doesn't arise later in life. It arises early.”
Emphasis on entrepreneurship and employment creation
Manmela said the education system should shift from producing job seekers to job creators, noting that there were “not enough jobs to absorb” the youth.
“All 50 public TVET colleges now offer entrepreneurship programmes,” he said, adding that more than 47,000 students will participate in 2024.
However, he cautioned: “Entrepreneurship will not flourish in an economy that is structurally closed.”
On vocational training, Manmela said there is a shortage of skilled artisans in the country, with only 20,000 produced annually against a demand of 30,000.
“There is no shortage of young people in South Africa. What we lack are pathways into skilled work,” he said.
The government aims to increase training of artisans, aiming for 37,000 registrations this year and expanding work-based learning opportunities.
call for a unified system
Manmela said fragmentation in the education and training system remains a major obstacle.
“Our challenge is not a lack of programs but fragmentation… This is a systems problem and requires a systems response,” he said.
He urged strong coordination between government, industry and civil society to ensure that every youth gets “a path to learning, a path to skills, a path to work, a path to dignity”.
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