Tackling youth unemployment calls for multi-stakeholder collaboration

The spectre of youth unemployment and the subsequent socioeconomic affect it has on society continues to be a major challenge in SA, one that has become even more intractable after the Covid-19 devastation.

We need to face hard truths about the high rate of youth unemployment which, by recent Stats SA calculations, stands at 63%. An ever-rising number of young people with a bleak future ought to be of huge concern to leaders in the public and private sectors, and especially for policymakers.

We are increasingly seeing posts on social media platforms where young people, some of whom hold master’s degrees, bemoan the fact that despite their qualifications they cannot find jobs.

Counter this with the number of job adverts placed in newspapers and on platforms such as LinkedIn. Since posts and ads are on the increase, we can only assume that the skills our graduates have are not a match for the jobs that are available. This begs the question of whether our universities, colleges and other tertiary institutions are producing graduates fit for the requirements of the South African economy.

What then are these institutions teaching our youth? This education and job mismatch is of concern. There should be greater collaboration between education institutions, the government and industries where the country’s current and future skills requirements are mapped, and for the academic sector to take these into consideration as they develop and review their curricula.

Having worked in the mining sector for many years, I’m aware of initiatives where companies collaborate with institutions of higher learning to fund departments to retain the skills of academics who teach specialist courses related to mining. This intervention ensures that most of the students pursuing mining-related degrees pass.

While there are many problems in the mining sector, we should be taking this model across the various critical sectors to ensure that the country’s tertiary education institutions produce ready-made graduates and artisans fit for the job market.

According to a paper published in 2019 by Russian scholars Maria Mizintseva, Anna Sardarian and others titled “Developing students’ leadership skills at higher educational institutions for their successful adaptation at the labour market”, a key ingredient in resolving youth unemployment is the need to develop what has been called soft skills to help young people navigate the job market.

According to the paper, most young graduates lack qualities that enable them to be more competitive among similarly highly skilled professionals. These include assertiveness, willingness to take risks, ability to work in a team, sociability, and emotional intelligence. These qualities, they say, characterise a person with strong leadership capability, the development of which is today one of the most urgent tasks for institutions of higher learning.

Their study, conducted in Russia and European countries with medium to high youth unemployment, refers to a deliberate effort to introduce programmes at tertiary level to prepare graduates for the job market.

The development of a well-rounded graduate who will perform well in the work environment can never be overstated. A key question is whether, in our own backyard and in the academic sphere, we take into consideration the skills that these graduates will need to survive and thrive in corporate SA?

Our country has a painful yet diverse history. A youngster born in Orange Farm and her or his counterpart born in Morningside can never embody the same experience when entering an institution of higher learning. They may both be born in Joburg but their outcomes in life will be very different.

This takes into consideration how they were prepared from a young age to enter the job market. More resources and focus ought to be provided to the young person from Orange Farm for him or her to have a shot at success. Otherwise, we will continue to create more plans that do not address the lived experience of real people on the ground and give that much-needed opportunity to break out of the cycle of unemployment and poverty.