Last week, hundreds of thousands of children across South Africa returned to the classroom for the new school year.
Some will be taking their very first classes ever at the ages of just six and seven, while some not-yet-pimply-faced teenagers will be stepping into the turbulent whirlwinds of high school.
The annual curtain-raiser for the school year is the ubiquitous results announcement for the outgoing matriculants. The class of 2024’s pass rate was an all-time high of 87.3% for the NSC certificate—some 4.4 percentage points higher than the class of 2023. It is always astounding to hear how the crème de la crème collect an abundance of distinctions, surely guaranteeing them a ticket into a university of their choice.
And as with every year, a very valid and yet not big enough fuss is made over the unimaginable absurdity of the 30% and 40% pass marks for various subjects, which does nothing but absolutely undermine the value of the qualification that is being celebrated.
What unfailingly strikes me, year after year, when the Minister of Education of the day parades the matric results, is that the batch of students being celebrated represents less than half of the original class that began their journey some 12 years earlier — the rest having dropped out along the way, before what would be their final exams.
The future by nature is unpredictable, but there is a significant positive sliding scale for one’s prospects of gainful employment and self-upliftment opportunities relative to the qualifications one obtains in South Africa. But just getting the qualifications, let alone finding job opportunities, is a wicked version of the Squid Games.
Consider that even for the brightest matriculants who will go on to university, less than 20% will complete their undergraduate degrees. While a university degree is by no means the be-all and end-all, and more emphasis should be placed on promoting technicons and apprenticeships, the likelihood of finding a job as a university graduate is way, way higher — only 2.7% of unemployed South Africans are university graduates.
Take it from me
South Africa has been plagued by a myriad of obstacles in education and employment for decades now, from onerous labour laws and red tape right through to rabid teachers’ unions and regressive race-based laws, to name but a few. Even for those relatively few who walk out of their ululatory university graduation ceremonies with a transcript of any substance, finding work is a hustle like no other — take it from me.
I did reasonably well at high school, got into a premier local university on a scholarship, and completed an Honours degree on the back of an undergraduate degree with distinction. I was one of the few in my original class that year that would make it that far and one of the less than 50% of postgraduate candidates countrywide that would have completed their postgraduate degrees.
And then, I entered the job market.
Now, admittedly, I didn’t pursue the type of degree that would guarantee me a straightforward ‘9-to-5’ job that comes with medical benefits, end-of-year functions at Tashas and payments into a retirement annuity. I did an arts degree made up of razzmatazz courses, premised on my passions and interests.
And yes, I heard the classic joke umpteen times:
“What’s the difference between a humanities graduate and a pizza?”
“A pizza can feed a family of four.”
While I loved my studies, pursuing a career would be and, indeed, has been a rollercoaster.
Wonderful array
The ride so far has included a wonderful array of full-time jobs and freelance projects, taking me to a diversity of places, including Mozambican archipelagos, the politically heated streets of Senekal and even the foothills of the snow-capped Bavarian Alps. I have been fortunate to have a solid home base to fall back on that has given me the peace of mind and confidence to leave jobs, either to pursue other growth opportunities or to walk away from positions that weren’t suited to me (which is really just diplomatic code for ‘fleeing from bad managers’).
I do believe there is an art to job-hunting that I have undoubtedly not yet mastered, but even applying for and securing work is extremely difficult — unless, of course, you’re a master of this dark art.
In the past two and a half years, I have applied for over 120 jobs. Of those, I was formally rejected off the bat from 22 companies and had interviews with 14 (sometimes including multiple rounds) that ended ultimately in rejections. While for the remaining roughly 80 applications, I just never got a response, despite going through the formal processes. Partly out of necessity, but notwithstanding accumulated experience and confidence, I am now pursuing self-employment, even if it means dipping into savings to tide myself over initially.
South Africa’s youth unemployment rate on the expanded definition, which includes people between the ages of 18 and 34 (i.e., my cohort) who are unemployed but seeking employment or have given up looking for employment entirely, is a whopping 46%.
Show some gratitude
So, while you once again endure the infuriating back-to-school traffic on your way to work, along potholed streets with malfunctioning traffic lights, with the car radio blaring out yet more reports celebrating the twisted matric results, take a deep breath. Rather show some gratitude. Be grateful that you have a job to commute to, because, in South Africa at least, you’ve overcome the overwhelming odds against finding a job at all.
[Image: Cole Keister on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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