Youth jobless rate world’s worst

An education expert believes a fundamental problem with SA’s education system is that not all pupils are equipped with the basics in primary school.

This comes after the Spectator Index ranked SA’s youth unemployment rate as the highest in the world.

Of the countries it ranked‚ the Spectator Index said the five countries with the highest youth unemployment were SA at 52.8%; followed by Greece (36.8%)‚ Spain (34.9%)‚ Nigeria (33.1%) and Italy (32.5%).

SA’s poor foundation-phase education system has repeatedly been linked to the country’s skills shortage.

Education analyst Nic Spaull said that “78% of grade 4 children can’t read for meaning in any language and 61% of grade 5s cannot do basic maths”.

“I think that is where the wheels come off and that’s where we should be focusing our attention.”

Last week‚ basic education minister Angie Motshekga announced that the matrics of 2018 achieved an overall pass rate of 78.2%.

The class of 2017 achieved a 75.1% pass rate‚ up from the 72.5% pass rate of 2016.

In total‚ 790‚843 pupils wrote the 2018 exams‚ either full-time or part-time. It was the fourth-largest group of matrics to register for the finals.

Spaull has raised concerns about the 2018 matric results‚ especially the high drop-out rate of pupils before grade 12.

In a tweet last week he promised to keep revealing the truth behind the figures‚ “until minister Angie Motshekga starts reporting and emphasising the 400‚000 kids that dropped out of school”.

Economist Mike Schüssler responded to Spaull on Twitter‚ commenting: “Explains a lot.

“Will the new graduates actually get jobs? Judging from the QLFS [quarterly labour force survey] numbers less are.” –