Developing the young professionals of the future through the creation of opportunity
Note to editors: The following is an extract of a speech to be delivered this evening by DA Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko MP in a debate on the future of young professionals in South Africa.
At the dawn of our new democracy in 1994, some 18 years ago, born frees - as they are referred to today - were welcomed into a new South Africa. Constitutionally, it was a South Africa fundamentally different to the country of their parents' birth.
In reality, it maintained the harsh consequences of past policies, such as discrimination and oppression. For many of those young South Africans born after our acquisition of freedom, the circumstances of their birth would do more to determine their future prospects, than all the worth of their character and ambition.
While government policies have sought to address the divisions of the past, the infrastructure of discrimination developed over centuries of colonialism and Apartheid, are not easy to overturn.
To address this development gap and fundamentally undo the inherited division of the past, South Africa needed a government that would show complete dedication to the cause of upliftment and the creation of opportunity.
It required more schools, with better teachers, more resources and a superior curriculum. It required careful monitoring and mentoring of these young children as they progressed through the system. It required access to tertiary and further education, and the acquisition of new skills.
It required rapid economic growth and job creation. It required a safe South Africa, with local governments which deliver services, where tenders are open to all South Africans, not just a closed few, and where public money is spent wisely, without waste, so that this positive cycle of upliftment and development continues, and with pace.
Those born in 1994, not enough of whom will be in matric this year, should have been our young professionals in 2019. There will be many more than there would have been in 1994. But there are not as many as could have been if we had shown complete dedication to the cause of upliftment.
The latest matric results give us an indication of what has materialised. Despite a 70,2% national matric pass rate, only an estimated 33% of all South Africans who were enrolled in Grade One in 2000 passed their matric exams in 2011. What happened to the other 469,070 students? What prospects will they have for a better life? Why will most of them not form the audiences of discussions such as these in the future?
The reality which faces these young South Africans stands in stark contrast to those who succeed.
Unlike those who remain trapped in the cycle of poverty and despair, these young South Africans would have completed schooling, received tertiary education, and enter into the higher end of the workforce. They would have had been presented with opportunities, and the skills to take advantage of them. They would have had choices, and the ability to act on them. They are our success stories.
There are however too few of them. Of those estimated 33% of South Africans who make it through our system during the course of 2000 to 2011, only 23.5% received results which would enable them access to tertiary education. As the chaos outside South Africa's universities this past month demonstrated, there is not enough space for all those who have applied. And with little guidance and funding, few will pursue other further study options. They will find it difficult to join the class of young professionals in the future.
For those who make it through the gates and who successfully complete their qualifications, they too will be confronted with challenges. While there is an estimated 900,000 scarce-skilled vacancies in the South African economy, many will not have the correct set of skills to fill it. And as government employment becomes the key driving force of job creation under the current state-centric model, the role of cadre deployment limits the entry on the basis of political connections and not ability, and in doing so limits opportunity-led job creation in the private sector. For many, President Zuma's professed ‘Year of the Job' proved to be the ‘Year of the No Job'.
The road travelled by our born frees, the potential young professionals of the future, is therefore perilous. Indeed, the path of the girl born in 1994 is riddled with obstacles. Her opportunities are limited. And she must work to overcome this without the help of those who are responsible and capacitated to assist. Her success, however, is possible. It requires the absolute dedication to her growth and development. It requires a quality education, and an infrastructure to support it, a healthy and secure life, the creation of opportunities, and a set of advanced skills, which enables her to pursue them.
The success of this young girl is in fact reliant on the same factors that she will need if she is to have a future as a young professional. That is, a government which works towards the removal of obstacles and the creation of opportunities, so that every individual, no matter their background, can make choices and live a life of their own design.
The question then is not what is the future of the young professional, but how can we make sure we have more young professionals in the future. The two both require the same input, the same foundations, and the same principles. The more you allow for success at the start, the more promising the success at the other end will be.
To achieve this, you need a government which demonstrates absolute dedication to the cause of upliftment through the creation of opportunity. This is the alternative national government the Democratic Alliance is committed to building. It is this alternative vision which will make sure there are more young professionals, who have at their disposal opportunity and choice, so that they can chart their own future, and be responsible for their own successes.
Issued by the Democratic Alliance, January 24 2012
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