Community service can only work with the help of experts

18 March 2014 - 02:01 By The Times Editorial
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The ANC seems determined to press ahead with the idea of extending compulsory community service - currently only applicable to medical students - to all graduates.

The concept is not new: Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande announced in 2010 that his department would look into it, in line with an earlier ANC resolution.

Yesterday, a sub-committee of the party's national executive committee announced that, within the next five years, all graduate students would be expected to undertake a year's compulsory community service.

Perhaps anticipating a public outcry, the committee proposed that community service be first imposed on students who receive bursaries or loans from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and only later on other graduates.

In a young democracy such as ours, with massive developmental problems, expecting students who benefit from the taxpayers' largesse to give something back when they graduate is reasonable and makes eminent sense.

Why should community service be compulsory only for doctors?

There is a burning need for expertise in a plethora of other fields - such as engineering, communications, education, the law and the NGO sector - and graduates, even if they are inexperienced, can help fill the breach.

University students, be they subsidised by the state, their parents or both, should appreciate that they are a privileged elite in a society in which most people are trapped in poverty.

Arguments of massive unemployment among graduates have been overstated: they are far more likely to get decent jobs than matriculants or school drop-outs.

But if graduates are placed in positions appropriate to their expertise, and if they are properly mentored and supervised, compulsory community service could provide them with important workplace skills.

Implementation is everything and the proposal will not work unless the state draws on the proved skills of NGOs and the private sector.

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