Transforming education to tackle South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis

The G20 Leaders’ Summit is over, now the hard work to implement and apply its many declarations must start. One particular declaration that must be taken to heart if we want to address a core challenge at the heart of our stalled economy, is the absolute necessity of reducing the rate of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEET) by a further 5% by 2030.

This calls for a whole new way of thinking about teaching, learning, and employment, and South Africa’s government, its business leaders and institutions of higher learning will have to work together to change the narrative. For example, instead of complaining about skills shortages, we can collaborate to actively define and invest in the skills our economy needs; and rather than seeing training as a cost associated with the existing workforce we can reframe it as the most critical form of capital investment we can make.

Research indicates that companies that put talent at the centre of their business strategy realise higher total shareholder returns than their competitors. Imagine this principle at the heart of a nation?

Reframing the future of talent

The world today is defined by complexity, turbulence, and the stark reality of the “knowing-doing gap.” We are living in a period where skills, once good enough to fuel a 30-year career, are often on the path to obsolescence within five years.

Against this tumultuous backdrop, South Africa faces a domestic crisis that is both existential and avoidable, namely a vast, frustrated pool of youth trapped by a desperate shortage of job-ready skills. It's time for a national reset in how we approach this challenge, and it starts, like many good strategic thinking processes, by reframing. For too long, we have clung to the notion that the university degree is the sole valid destination after high school. This prejudice creates an immense, destructive bottleneck, with just four out of every 100 South African children who start school going on to get a formal degree within six years of matriculating.

The reasons for this are many, from high dropout rates in schools, to a lack of places in good universities, to a lack of finances, forcing even those who do get a matric to have to go straight into the workforce (if they are lucky enough to find a job). For those who do get a place at university, an estimated 50-60% dropout rate is recorded in the first year for reasons that range from the financial to the psycho-social. All of this adds up to a catastrophic loss of potential that fuels unemployment and crushes ambition. A shift from knowing to doing with business in the driving seat.

To break through this bottleneck, we need to realise that the future of employment is not found solely in a university certificate but across a spectrum of platforms – from the factory floor to the digital classroom. Learning must be flexible, modular, and accessible at every stage of life, acknowledging that a person’s educational journey might start with an internship and mature to an MBA or PhD years later.

This flexible approach, which also emphasises the practical application of skills, is the essential counter balance to the "knowing-doing gap". Businesses can partner with higher learning institutions to co-design and deliver practical and relevant training that goes beyond internships. This could mean designing specific short courses and certifications that address immediate operational gaps or investing in longer-term accredited qualifications to build cumulative skills over several years.

Furthermore, businesses can create internal capacity-building systems, which include robust, accredited apprenticeship and learnership programmes that immerse youth in real-world application.These platforms provide on-the-job mentorship, ensuring that the skills gained are relevant and immediately productive.

At its heart, such training needs to also be about more than skills, which will always have an expiry date. Instead, a propensity for getting things done needs to be the single most important element we cultivate in the next generation of employees, managers, and leaders.This, and a powerful ambition to continue learning and unlearning as their career unfolds, can ensure that we create lifelong learners, not just lifelong learning opportunities.

The government as chief incentivisor

While the core training mandate may rest with industry, the government holds the power to accelerate this essential change through policy. It is simply not enough to mandate a skills development levy or BEEE requirements to spend a portion of turnover on training. The system can be revised to reward high-impact action. For example, three simple shifts could be mandated.

First, the state can incentivise businesses that commit to training, upskilling, and capacity building for the youth. This could take the form of significant tax deductions for businesses that can demonstrate measurable outcomes in youth employment and accredited skills transfer. Second, rebates from theSkills Development Levy (SDL) could be higher and easier to claim for companies running accredited, industry-aligned apprenticeships that lead directly to employment contracts. And finally, direct subsidies to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) could be given to those taking on first-time employees who lack formal work experience, effectively lowering the risk for the employer. By creating a system where it is financially and operationally beneficial for a business to develop a young person, the government can unlock trillions of Rand in private investment for workforce development.

A new national purpose

The road ahead is steep. There is no two ways about it. But we cannot lose heart. As Nelson Mandela taught us, “after climbing a great hill, one finds there are many more to climb.” We cannot afford to rest on the laurels of past educational models. Leadership, whether in business or the government, requires bold choices to try new things.

Drawing lessons from institutions with centuries of cumulative experience, we must understand that education drives the world, but the greatest leaders are those who are ready to discard what they think they know, recognise what doesn’t work, and boldly adopt thenew.By working together in effective public-private partnerships, we can build this capability in our young people and convert our youth population from an unemployment time bomb into a dynamic catalyst for growth. The tools to achieve this are within reach. Let’s use themomentum created by the G20/B20 process to move beyond the recommendations to concrete action.

Jon Foster-Pedley is Dean of the Henley Business School and Shadi Chauke is Deputy Chair of the B20 Employment and Education Task Force.

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

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