The 16^th of June is commemorated as Youth Day in South Africa, and every year, we, as a nation, ask numerous questions about the role of youth in South Africa. Despite July being nearly upon us, conversations about the youth should not be limited to one day or one month, it should be a persistent part of our ongoing public discourse. 

To quote a maxim from a January 1976 editorial about school funding in an Illinois monthly “The Common Bond”: “We did not inherit our future from our ancestors, we have borrowed it from our children.”

How though does the future look for South African youth?

According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) for the first quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate was 63,9% for those aged 15-24 and 42,1% for those aged 25-34 years, while the current official national rate stands at 34,5%. Based on these statistics, it is quite apparent that the youth are carrying the brunt of unemployment and in turn poverty. 

The QLFS for the first quarter of 2022 goes on to detail the current situation: “South Africa has over 10 million young people aged 15-24 years and, of these, only 2,5 million were in the labour force, either employed or unemployed…

37,0% of this group were disengaged from the labour market in South Africa. These are regarded as youth not in employment, education or training (NEET). A large share of these (NEET) young people are discouraged.  There has been an increase in the NEET rate for both males and females…

Of the 40,0 million working age population in Q1:2022, more than half (51,6%) were youth (15-34 years).”

Education has always been and remains an essential element in poverty alleviation. An education provides greater access to employment opportunities and provides the necessary skills and knowledge for targeted creativity as well as innovation for entrepreneurship. 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organization, self-described as working towards building better policies for better lives, with the goal  to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all, states that: “Tertiary qualifications are less common in South Africa. Only 7% of adults have a tertiary education, the lowest among all OECD and partner countries. Tertiary attainment is equally low among younger adults: only 6% of 25–34-year-olds were tertiary educated, also the lowest across OECD and partner countries and well below the G20 average of 38%.”

Added to the economic inactivity and low educational concerns faced by the youth, crime affects the youth as well. In the early hours of Sunday morning, the 26^th June 2022, twenty one teenagers, between the ages of thirteen and seventeen years of age, were found dead at a tavern in Scenery Park, in an East London, in the Eastern Cape. 

This tragedy, during youth month, is an extreme example of how unlawfulness impacts the youth. 

According to SaferSpaces, an online knowledge hub on community safety and violence prevention in South Africa: “Around the globe, every year almost a quarter of a million people under the age of 30 are murdered. This accounts for half of all homicides globally per year. For every young person killed by violence, 20 to 40 more become victims of violence and require hospitalization.”

Current unemployment numbers, coupled with low tertiary education participation amongst youth and greater exposure to violent crime should raise serious concerns.

As a nation, we need to pay greater attention to giving our youth a future. The starting point would be to ensure that young people have greater access to quality education, particularly tertiary education. South Africa is burdened by contradicting burdens in that we have insufficient skills within our labour market whilst suffering high levels of unemployment due to job scarcity and a lack of skilled individuals to fill current vacancies.

Our next priority should be introducing the youth to entrepreneurship and access to new economic opportunities such as agriculture, tourism, South Africa’s biodiversity economy and a rising need for green, sustainable forms of energy. 

“Theories of the work-crime relationship suggest that employment reduces crime by offering routines, income, and supervision.” according to an academic article by Angela Wang Lee, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, titled “A time-sensitive analysis of the work-crime relationship for young men”. 

Therefore, if we keep our youth productive and engaged in their present and building toward the future, we will see a reduction of the impact crime has on the youth and on society, as a whole. Further, young people who are productive and engaged in their present and build towards their future, will be less likely to be at a tavern and suffer the ill effects thereof. 

A focus on the youth needs a persistent, consistent effort, rather than an annual, monthly focus. The challenges facing the youth exist for twenty fours a day, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year, so too our responses, thoughts and actions need to be equally intensive.