Don’t cry, become employable

As pupils gear up to write final exams, I look around and see a lack of focus, almost as though students are apathetic to the magnitude of these assessments.

Grade 1 or Grade 12, it matters not because, believe me, without a Grade 1 it’s almost impossible to get to Grade 12.

Every grade is important – but students do not seem to care. Some parents see school as glorified baby-sitting clubs: out of sight, out of mind. And teachers are just tired.

Now fast forward to high school: the government is responsible for the unemployment rate but are you employable?

It is very easy to have expectations of the government: they build the schools, employ the teachers, equip the students with tablets – but they cannot force pupils to actually sit down and take their education seriously.

At the front of a classroom stands a teacher, be it in science, mathematics or English – not a motivational speaker. The requirements for promotion are dropping every year.

This year, who knows, the pass mark for mathematics might just be 12% – but have we ever thought that perhaps this is the case because of the calibre of students that teachers have to work with?

Not every student is a scientific genius, but every student should be a hard worker, especially if they know they have an academic challenge that may impede them from reaching the highest possible accolades.

Parents are far too quick to claim they have busy lives, with the primary focus being that of providing for their offspring.

But if your child has no drive to excel, you will have to provide for them for longer, for they will be unemployable…

Not everyone is like our president who runs an entire nation without the necessary scholastic achievements.

While the young cadres in the EFF go from strength to strength in academia, Number One waits for another Asian country to refer to him as Dr JG Zuma.

We cannot be marching up and down, blockading national roads because we are unemployable.

We can discuss unemployment until the cows come home, but maybe we have to first be employable to stand on our soap boxes.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo

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