Today’s youth face new struggles
JOBURG - Despite being free of the repression that gripped their predecessors, South African youth face struggles of a different kind.
Nearly four decades after students in Soweto rose up against Afrikaans being introduced as a medium of instruction in schools, today’s youth are challenged with the quality of education and unemployment.
This was the view of the country’s political parties, which believed that the country had come a long way since the apartheid regime, but had a long way to go.
ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza said the youth should inherit an improving country and must commit themselves to its new legacy.
He said the country faced struggles of unemployment, improving the quality of education, poverty, and the economic and social disparities caused by apartheid.
He said as the future leaders of the economy, the youth needed to be quick to drive development in the country.
According to the Inkatha Freedom Party, 20 years after South Africa’s first democratic elections the country still lacked permanent jobs for the youth.
The party believed it was time for government to ensure that the millions of young people who were willing to work, had every opportunity to do so by creating a conducive environment and availing opportunities to them.
The DA’s youth chairperson Yusuf Cassim said the party’s youth demanded “a better deal for all young people, today”.
“The DA Youth will fight for every qualifying matriculant to be given the opportunity to further their education… for quality basic education… for more jobs for young people,” he said.
Youth Day, also known as the Soweto Uprising, marks a series of high school pupil-led protests in South Africa that began on the morning of 16 June, 1976 that ended in bloodshed after police opened fire on protesters.
Police blocked the movement of 10 000 to 20 000 pupils towards the Orlando Stadium and during the confrontation that ensued, 13-year-old Hector Pieterson was shot dead.
Pieterson was shot at Orlando West High School and became the symbol of the Soweto uprising.
The June uprising led to 176 deaths and thousands were injured.
The protest began in Soweto but spread to other townships around the country, and continued until year-end in the face of harsh state repression.
