June 16, 1976

This year marks the 46th anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising. In honor of the youth of 1976 for their role against the apartheid struggle, South Africans ...

“The church in South Africa has done a great deal to address the challenges of the youth,” Thring said. “As racism is the worst form of discrimination, overcoming it at least allows every human being to express their thoughts and opinions without fear of prejudice based on the color of their skin,” Koekoe said. Yes, the youth of South Africa now have equal access to education, but whether it is "better" is debatable. The co-ordinator of the Children and Youth Unit, from the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, the Rev. Phezile Koekoe, said that youth unemployment has always been very high in South Africa — around 40% due to career choices in universities, which are not in demand in the society. Luthuli added that drug abuse and teenage pregnancy are among the contemporary struggles linked to the high rate of youth unemployment. The economic and labor policies of the ruling party have failed the youth of South Africa, as they have resulted in massive unemployment in the country. Koekoe elaborated that the other factors impacting the high rate of unemployment are “overpopulation with limited opportunities, high rate of drop out in schools, making illiteracy to be too high, and closure of many industrial factories due to economic collapse.” “The curriculum must be entrepreneurial and geared toward preparing the youth” to take on corporate roles and also “to open up their businesses by taking advantage of 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution) and technological advances. “One of the factors that I can think of is low skill levels and a lack of mentorship,” Thring said. In their fight for better education and in protest about the souls of the African youth killed by the apartheid police, they burned tires on the streets to block vehicles from entering the townships. “Year on year, the unemployment rate among young graduates (aged 15-24 years) declined from 40.3% to 32.6%, while it increased by 6.9 percentage points to 22.4% for those aged 25-34 years in Q1: 2022,” elaborated Stats SA. The report added that of the 10 million youth in South Africa, only 2.5 million were in the labor force, either employed or unemployed. The government’s key declaration was for African teachers to educate African students in mathematics, arithmetic and social studies in Afrikaans.