When the optimism of youth conquers all
| Despite the gloom surrounding SA’s education system and weak economy, many young people are more determined than ever to build a better future for the country and for themselves, writes Tanya Farber
EVERY Monday when Pozisa Apleni, 28, leaves her house in Gugulethu as the sun comes up, she sees people her own age still slumped in their chairs at the shebeen on her neighbour’s property.
She heads off to her vocational training programme in the centre of Cape Town, still searching for permanent work prospects after 12 years of looking.
The fence between the two properties is for her a dividing line between hope and the hopeless, and she tells her young daughter to look away.
The 2015 South African Child Gauge, published by the Children’s Institute based at the University of Cape Town, concluded that 51% of young people in South Africa are neither working nor studying.
But, while this and many other statistics read like a catalogue of doom, there is also a sense of the potential represented by young South Africans, who make up around 40% of our population.
Despite grinding poverty, many young people had “very high aspirations”, said Ariane de Lannoy of the Poverty and Inequality Initiative, also based at UCT.
“Many describe their desire for a better life with stable jobs and higher income and many perceive education as the main pathway to achieving their dreams,” she said.
Many young South Africans have a great capacity for active citizenship.
A study of people aged beogy tween 18 and 29 reported on in the child gauge found, among other things, that only 11% had been active in a trade union but almost 80% had helped a neighbour, more than two-thirds had been involved in a social group, 65% had taken part in religious activities, and 40% had volunteered for a charity.
Many had been active in youth movements and in addressing social problems.
Buhle Zuma, a social psychol- lecturer at UCT, said young South Africans were socially and civically engaged, “albeit in less formally organised activities than prior generations”, and while some indulged in substance abuse, violence and hyper-consumerism, others remained “remarkably optimistic about their prospects”.
Patterns of mobility also suggest an active search for greener pastures — youth migration rates have increased.
Amina Ebrahim, of UCT’s Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, said the main reasons that young people moved were to get an education or find a job. “Youth mobility may in some cases signify risk and vulnerability, while in others it may be a sign of social mobility and improved opportunity,” she said.
Another moment of hope for young people is the rite of passage from school into further studies or a job. It can, however, fade quickly if there is nothing on the other side.
For the lucky few, a “gap year” is a pocket of unstructured time between secondary and tertiary education. For a great many more, it is an empty space that needs to be sealed off before it grows.
Development studies expert Cecil Mlatsheni said young people should be targeted for skills training “as they exit the schooling system and age out of the child support grant”, rather than when the effects of longerterm unemployment had already set in.
For youth leadership expert Janet Jobson at the DG Murray Trust, the notion of young people having agency is crucial, but it can only flourish in a supportive environment.
“Even the most motivated young person’s efforts are undermined by constraints in South Africa,” she said.
“Only one or two very exceptional young people could overcome all the odds, while the majority are working very hard but are faced with issues not of their own making.
“The problem is not in young people’s motivation, but in the society itself.”
The problem is not in young people’s motivation, but in society itself
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