Hard choices for South Africa's school leavers
I've just spent a day at a neat cluster of white and green buildings set back from the Indian Ocean coastline about three hours north of Durban. It is a poor, rural, well-run place, with a dynamic headmaster. It has just over a thousand pupils and an impressive 85% pass rate at national exams. But the school is struggling in the face of South Africa's crippling lack of jobs.
"Those who get average grades will go to the street," said headmaster Bheki Nomandla, grimly, explaining that the local unemployment rate is a staggering 74%. That prospect is a "motivating force" for some kids, but for many others it's a deeply dispiriting blow.
I'd gone to the school to see an impressive group called "Soccercinema" - basically three young men and a film projector - trying to bring the World Cup to marginalised, deprived areas by playing football documentaries in schools and villages around the country. I hope to write in more detail about them soon.
Most of the senior pupils I met at Silethukukhanya were full of ambition and energy. They talked about becoming accountants, doctors, chefs and dentists. They were excited about the World Cup - although several were worried that it might eat into their revisions schedules - and hoped it would lead to more jobs in the area. But the headmaster was less convinced. "Was the World Cup a big deal?" I asked. "Not really. We will be disadvantaged by the long holiday. It will be hard to keep the children out of trouble, and keep our grades high. Our main challenge is poverty. If it was not for outside help (computers from abroad, NGO projects, visits from Charlise Theron, a gift of fifty laptops) we would not manage."
When I got back to Johannesburg, the newspapers were full of the latest grim news about the country's . A crippling 35.4% of the workforce is affected.
The construction boom triggered by World Cup infrastructure projects already seems to be winding down.
The next day, on the radio, I heard a senior figure in the South African National Defence Force unveiling plans for a national service programme, to try to help tackle the crisis among disaffected, unemployed young men. The proposal - still rather woolly to put it mildly - has attracted plenty of as well as
Personally I think it's encouraging that the government is at least trying something new and radical. It is an acknowledgement that current policies are failing. The unemployment rate here - resilient despite years of economic growth - is profoundly worrying and could very easily lead to political instability. But - and it's a depressingly stubborn but - the reality here is that the government is extremely good at drawing up plans and strategies and desperately disappointing when it comes to implementation. "Service delivery protests" are the norm in neglected towns across the country.
Back at Silethukukhanya school, I noticed a blackboard in an empty 12th grade classroom. The topic of the day for some thirty students preparing for their final exams - "Class debate about unemployment".
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