Abstract:

In the first quarter of 2020, there were 20,4 million young people aged 15–34 years. These young people accounted for 63,3% of the total number of unemployed persons aged cohort. The unemployment rate within this group was 43,2% in the 1st quarter of 2020. The youth aged 15–24 years are the most vulnerable in the South African labour market, as the unemployment rate among this age group was 59,0% in the 1st quarter of 2020. Among graduates in this age group, the unemployment rate was 33,1% during this period compared to 24,6% in the 4th quarter of 2019 – an increase of 8,5 percentage points quarter-on-quarter. The focus of this paper will be the promises made to the 33.1%’ which promised that the legacy of apartheid could be addressed through higher education and further learning. That every child who obtains a higher education qualification will have an opportunity of employment. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for most of the youth aged 15-24.

Post-1994, youth have been constantly sold a dream. A dream, that access to education will solve their problems. However, the solution created problems of debt. Even though the black child now has a qualification, the black child is not secure and there is no guarantee for employment. This study aims to explore and investigate this issue through the following key themes: how can we better prepare our learners for the uncertainty of the job market; How they can be more than their profession through entrepreneurship. In light of this, both primary and secondary qualitative data to conduct the research were utilized. The main method of collecting this information was through online surveys via google forms, that were sent to our former students. The survey aimed to investigate how young people feel about the way they are being taught at the university level and what they wish they knew before facing the real world as young adults. The secondary data collection was through a literature review on the impact of unemployment in South African, which shows that unemployed people felt a lack of purpose in life that resulted in them experiencing difficulties in structuring their time, generally spent their time with passive and purposeless activities and experience frustration and anger that may lead to violence, substance abuse, prostitution, selling of drug and sometimes even suicide. In addition, the participants indicated that unemployed people lose not only their jobs but also their sense of social identity and self-worth. based on the findings gathered through the surveys and secondary data research shows that, indeed there is a need for this issue to be addressed. now more than ever in South Africa.

The results received from the survey have shown that many of our young people feel robbed and misled by our education system. They have lost all hope in our education system, as most of them fall within the 33.1% who are qualified graduates but are unemployed. In conclusion, graduates expressed how they wish they had been taught more about investing in entrepreneurship in their different professions and how not to be fixated solely on what they have graduated in. Ultimately, students need not only to be taught how to love and respect their professions but also how to be safe, self-sufficient and to be more than their professions - in order to make do with what they have to survive!

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, education, unemployment.