SA data issue must be urgently addressed

For a moment, you successful matric students, just sit and appreciate what you have achieved. Give thanks for that … and for the support of parents, friends, siblings and, especially, teachers on that long, arduous 12-year journey through the school system.

You have made it. You’ve proved to the world that you can do it. You are as good as anyone else. So, relax and soak it all in. You deserve this moment in the sun and this sense of achievement.

Which will feel as good to you as it does looking at that piece of paper today. But, while you may have made it, don’t think you’ve got it made. This is, after all, the real first step on the road to the rest of your life.

Ahead, if you are fortunate and have achieved university entrance grades, lies an even tougher academic test, at which some of you might fail. Before you enter those university gates, whether you are paying for that tuition or not, make sure you are certain about what you want to do.

Choose something with your heart, because this will be your career for life and, no matter how much money you make, you cannot buy job satisfaction. For those who do not go into university, do not despair. Look upon it as an opportunity, one with no boundaries, to do what really motivates you, to work with your hands or perhaps turn your dreams and talents into a business.

And, for the future, we wish that government and business could, somehow, “make a plan” to support both school pupils and those in tertiary institutions more by tackling that one obstacle which holds people back and underlines the rich-poor gap … that of data.

If we truly want to be a technologically advanced nation and accelerate learning through Internet-based materials, we cannot allow the inequality between those who can afford data and those who can’t to continue.

Look at it in two ways: firstly, it is the right thing to do and, secondly, it is an investment in the future of South Africa.

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