By Oriphulusa Nyadzhiwa
The majority of the beleaguered ANC-led South African Government is administered by geriatrics who hold high-ranking positions because they 'fought for freedom'.
It feels as though South African citizens owe them those positions, as if they had been commanded by citizens to leave the country to live in exile.
The likelihood of young people occupying leadership roles in the government is decreased as there are more elderly people in those positions.
It is toxic for the youth and the generations that follow. Why? Because poor decisions made by elderly people, who theoretically have less time left to live, really affect young people, who have more time to live and explore their lofty ambitions.
The same people who have held leadership positions for a long time are responsible for the continued corruption within our government, which involves the exploitation and inappropriate use of public resources.
Since they no longer have much to live for, they end up leaving legacies that will solely benefit their family and friends, which is unfair to citizens in a democratic country.
The socio-economic development needs youth as components to determine how development should be, the same way public participation is demanded when the decision making process is being initiated.
Youth should be involved in matters and decisions that will affect their lives in the future.
Our government is not doing anything with regards to an enormous youth unemployment rate that is increasing rather than getting better.
Experience is the best teacher; hence we also need old people who are experienced to guide and transfer knowledge and skills to the young generation to use and refine.
There are more skilled youth graduates who are sitting at home than opportunities to equip youth with more skills and knowledge, and most importantly to make use of the skills and knowledge they have acquired from educational institutions.
The aim of education whether it is formal education or informal, is to equip knowledge and skills within our minds.
Accessibility to education in South Africa is way high, but when that education is not given a platform to be utilised, it turns to be useless.
Growing in an impoverished family as a young person would really make you see being educated as the first resort to alleviate yourself and family out of poverty.
If that fails, other alternatives whether they are bad or good tend to be utilised.
Sometimes it leads to an increase in the rate of crime and other unlawful acts for survival purposes.
A rapid growth of youth being involved in the use of drugs and abusing alcohol as coping mechanisms towards the hardships that they are going through in their lives is damaging the future of the country.
This is having a negative impact on our country’s life expectancy and health quality of youth.
There are no ongoing awareness campaigns or other initiatives that are strongly having impacts to curb this growth of alcohol and substance abuse resulting from youth.
Sometimes the bad state that youth is facing should not be blamed on other people but themselves.
Some of them neglect themselves by not partaking in elections, to vote for political parties and candidates that they want to be leaders.
The gesture of youth giving up when it comes to vote for a better South Africa is doing more harm than good.
The government is becoming more relaxed because youth are sitting down and doing nothing about issues that they are facing within the country.
Issues like high unemployment rate, high crime rate, poverty, and other bad issues.
Legal protests are another quality of democracy.
Using social media only to raise such issues will not bring any positive outcome that will be beneficial to everyone.
South Africa might suffer from “brain drain” if the rate of youth unemployment remains to be high because no one will want to be in possession of skills that will not be beneficial in any way in their lives.
Developed countries are also going to suffer from flooding of South African youth from neglect of a dysfunctional government that is showing a state of being in failure.
The plan to reduce pass marks to 30% is another issue that is going to lead into being harmful to our youth.
It is an insult and disrespect to the youth because knowing 30% from what has been asked will not provide any solution, but more problems.
The education system that is being utilised in South Africans does not cater for 4IR.
If Microsoft office is not yet compulsory in our public schools, then we are not yet living in a digitalised world and catching up with other countries.
As more things are getting more digital, it should be a must for the government to equip the youth at a young age with those skills.
Another factor hindering the adaptation to the use of digital facilities in South African schools is crime that is dominant in our residential areas.
Minister Bheki Cele together with SAPS seem to be getting comfortable with the ongoing crime instead of fighting it because crime rate is getting worse, in all morphologies and dimensions.
Cele seems to only care when it is matters that are related to alcohol, the rest he “Shuts up!”.
As much as the government of South Africa is portraying signs of neglect towards its youth, it is never too late to act towards the inhumane treatment that is being imposed on us effortlessly.
The youth of South Africa deserve better than the bare minimum that is being provided now by the government.