COSATU notes with regret the worsening situation
revealed by the statistics released by Community
Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) (Sowetan, 29
March) indicating that South African youth are
receiving insufficient education, especially tertiary
education, which leads to them being unemployable.
What is even shocking is that the hardest hit by this
problem are African youths, both females and males.

This problem has its roots in the apartheid education
system that disorganised our country in every respect.
Unemployment, which results from outsourcing,
restructuring and privatisation, also plays a negative
role in this problem. When workers, most of whom are
African parents, lose their jobs, they cannot pay for
their children’s tertiary education.

The statistics show a wide academic gap - six percent
of African youth entering tertiary institutions, compared
to 32 percent of their white counterparts. This really
illustrates the economic class divisions in within the
SA society.

COSATU believes the government and the business
community have a major role to play in making
education more accessible to the African youth.

The general feeling among the African youth is
enthusiastic. They feel that if only the government
could intervene with dynamic strategies to help with
the funding of their education, they would go to school,
be educated and have a variety of job opportunities.

Business also has a social responsibility to provide
academic assistance to these youths as an economic
investment in the future.

COSATU calls for immediate assistance to provide
educational opportunities for these youth, as they are
the heirs to the national future - economically, socially
and politically. A nation without educated youth is a
nation with no future at all.

Siphiwe Mgcina
COSATU Spokesperson

[email protected]
082-821-7456
339-4911

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