OPINIONISTA: We must prepare our children for life

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Schools should start to inform learners about Covid-19, even if it means adapting the curriculum. In addition, learners must urgently receive training in skills which give them access to work and make worthy citizens of them. Like entrepreneurship. This is the one skill which can turn joblessness around.

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I am upset. The nonchalant attitude of some citizens regarding Covid-19 troubles me. Many of our citizens appear in public or stand in queues at shopping centres without masks. All this, while infections increase daily. When I wrote about Covid-19 for the first time on 17 March 2020, South Africa had 62 confirmed cases. After 15 weeks, the number has grown to an alarming 215,000.

Meanwhile, high schools are very busy preparing matriculants for the final examination. Grades R, 6 and 11 joined Grade 7 and 12 in some provinces. Initially, more grades would have returned, but Minister Angie Motshekga has yielded to the pressure from teachers and parents as some schools are not ready to welcome more learners back to school. Currently, 2,740 teachers and 1,260 learners are infected with the virus. Teachers and parents are rightly concerned.

Recently, it was announced that the unemployment rate has now risen to more than 30%. Approximately 11 million South Africans are currently jobless, while only 16 million are employed. Out of 10.3 million young people aged between 15 and 24, a total of 41.7% or 3.5 million are unemployed and not in school or studying. More alarming is that, with Covid-19, this number will increase. The right of matrics to write exams is thus a priority. If not during 2020, then during 2021.

During the drought in 2017, a few young people began to install water tanks in people’s gardens. With Covid-19, they expanded their business: they now install water tanks at schools for the necessary washing of hands. Similarly, youths in Langa with nine second-hand bicycles started to do shopping for senior citizens. This caught the eye of a sponsor and today it is a profitable business which provides work for 30 young people.

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