Government can only reach so far

Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi delivered the State of the Province Address this week and the focus point of many people was unemployment.

There were complaints that attacked a daring, clearly visible recruitment drive in the Nasi iSpani initiative. While cadre deployment remains a sore point, can every attempt be concluded as such?

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Where potential exists, are we not better as a nation if we were to improve on it, than to harbour on the negativity that stumbles the brainchild?

It is very easy to have expectations of the government. After all, they are for the people – well, supposed to be.

We demand free education, the government builds the schools, employs the teachers, equips the pupils with materials – but they cannot force pupils to take their education seriously.

They cannot remind parents that those 30-plus children in each class need their parents to enforce their work ethic and to strive for above-average results.

At the front of a classroom stands a teacher, be it in science, mathematics or English – not a motivational speaker.

Universities, even secondary and primary schools, have every right to want to have high pass rates because as learning institutions, they know and understand how much effort they have put in throughout the year.

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These institutions put their best foot forward, though sometimes met with resistance, not just from departments who do not understand grassroots level problems, but also from pupils with helicopter parents – the “I know my rights” pupils.

All of sudden, like never before, pupils have too much homework, they are misunderstood and their apathy can easily be explained away – or we can just call a spade a spade, they are lazy and have no real reason to care for school because the government owes us jobs.

We cannot be marching, blocking national roads, because we are unemployable, though throughout elections, politicians promise a high number of jobs in exchange for your vote.

But if you do your calculations, read print media, go through the internet, kept ourselves informed, we would realise the government cannot employ us all – the private sector can and will turn away low achievers.

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