Invest and empower the youth with meaningful skills

WE CELEBRATED Youth Day yesterday and as June is Youth Month, we really need to take a closer look at youth development and invest in meaningful skills development to empower young people for meaningful economic involvement.

- THEMBA KHOZA

We are experiencing high youth unemployment in the country but on the other side there are critical skills shortages in the economy. We cannot continue talking about shortage of skills in a country with free education when our tertiary institutions are overflowing with students year in and year out. This means there is something we are doing wrong somewhere as a country.

We need to sit down and assess the required skills and encourage our youth to prioritise the fields of study to close those gaps and meaningfully contribute to the socio-economic development of the country. If we can encourage our young people to get the skills required by the economy, we definitely will reduce the high youth unemployment in the country.

I am encouraged by this year’s theme for the Youth Month, “Skills for the changing world - Empowering youth for meaningful economic participation’, which emphasises the importance of equipping young people with the necessary skills and education to thrive in a rapidly evolving global economy.