Over 7000 IT graduates unemployed
MYESC splashed P95 million to create jobs
Three jobs that have been created for youth per constituency per month by the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYESC) are not enough and lead to some companies exploiting qualified youths through internships.
Contributing to the State of Nation Address, Member of Parliament for Kanye North Thapelo Letsholo said although he appreciates the entrepreneurship efforts to tackle youth unemployment, more can still be done.
In his State of the Nation Address, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said that in 2019/2020 MYESC spent about P95 million to fund 975 businesses and created 1918 jobs. This translates to160 jobs per month and three jobs per constituency per month.
“This is an effort, but as we can all appreciate, it is not enough in a country plagued by high unemployment, especially for young people,” Letsholo said this week in Parliament.
Currently there are 7796 Information Technology ( IT) or Computer Science graduates from universities registered on the
government Database under the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM).
Letsholo said most of these IT graduates are struggling and are exploited by some institutions who employ them as interns, and when the two years of internship lapses, they get replaced by a new batch of interns.
In his view, these youths must be employed as computer technicians at schools where they can use their technical expertise to prepare schools for complete digitisation of education by 2024. “COVID-19 has put the writing on the wall for us, embrace IT or perish, we have the resources, let’s use them.”