Deputy president David Mabuza said on Thursday the Human Resources Development Council (HRDC) should be concerned about the 750,000 students who dropped out of school due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“These increasing dropout rates compound the already high number of young people that are not in education, employment and training.”
Mabuza was speaking at the hybrid HRDC meeting at the Sedibeng TVET college in Vereeniging on Thursday.
The council was meeting for the first time physically since the lifting of Covid restrictions.
Mabuza told the gathering that the pandemic had highlighted the digital divide that was leaving underprivileged students behind.
“While schools in affluent areas were able to continue learning during Covid-19, those who have no access to ICT were disadvantaged, thus lagging behind, hence our call for the mobilisation of requisite resources from government and private sector to jointly drive these initiatives.”
Most concerning is that 35.7% of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are classified as not being in employment, education or training.
— David Mabuza, deputy president
Mabuza said SA must address its socioeconomic challenges to ensure sustainable livelihoods and social cohesion.
“Stats SA says the country’s unemployment rate stood at 33.9% in the second quarter of the year, with almost 12.3-million people jobless.
“Most concerning is that 35.7% of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are classified as not being in employment, education or training.”
He said statistics showed 39.3% of black women are unemployed, making them vulnerable.
“The reality is that we have an unsustainably high number of young people who are unemployed. Something drastic needs to happen.”
He said the council needs to put measures in place to ensure that those who have lost employment and learning opportunities are able to bounce back through a package of skills development interventions that will create viable options.
One of the lessons learnt from managing the pandemic was that the nature of some jobs will never be the same, he said.
“Therefore, we need to work with industry to design targeted skills programmes that will facilitate the absorption of youth into entrepreneurship and employment.”
He said the question was, how do we ensure the HRDC strategy responds to job seekers and entrepreneurs?
“Therefore, the programme of action should lead to the realisation of a better environment for learning and training. With proper education and training, we can move forward as a country.”
Equally, he said the country needs to move urgently intervene to address the challenges that are facing the basic education sector.
“As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen an unfortunate increase in school dropouts.”
Mabuza said SA communities need to become digitally adaptive.
“We must bridge the digital inequality gap in our country, especially among unskilled and low-income citizens, among whom women and girl children represent the majority,” he said.
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