By Carmel Marock
Umrabulo no. 18 (June 2003) highlighted the submission made by the youth sector to the Growth and Development Summit. The submission proposed a number of programmatic interventions that could be made to address the priority of unemployed young people. Figures cited recently speak to the large numbers of young people that are leaving school (many without matrics) that are unable to access the labour market. There is a recognition that there is a need for a number of initiatives that address this urgent challenge.
Specifically, the submission gave support to National Youth Service as an overarching programme, which engages young people in a disciplined process of providing a valued and necessary service to the community in which they live, while increasing their own skills, education and opportunities to generate income. The submission welcomed the adoption, by Government, of National Youth Service for unemployed young people between the ages of 18 and 35, and called for linkages between existing programmes and priorities of government and national youth service.
Since then the GDS has agreed on the need for an expanded public works programme, and has decided to both expand the infrastructural projects and to launch projects that cover social services with a view to meeting basic needs. It has also agreed that some of these programmes will take the form of the National Youth Service.
These steps pave the way for large-scale national youth service programmes that span the country and the different sectors of society. This article provides a more detailed look at national youth service, and highlights the challenges ahead.
What is Youth Service Programme
National Youth Service contains the following three elements illustrated in the diagram below. Each of these elements needs to be seen as part of an integrated whole, such that each element builds onto and feeds into the other.
These elements are illustrated by the following examples:
In another example:
These examples highlight the potential benefit to communities of involving young people in service. Critically, they also highlight the impact that these programmes can have in addressing the imperative of enabling young people to access the labour market.
The criteria for each of the elements that make up a Youth Service programme is discussed in more detail below:
Service element
The service element of a Youth Service programme has three essential functions:
Service activities should support a national or local development objective and should be completed in accordance with high standards, so that young people are viewed as a positive force and resource in that community.
Structured learning and individual development
The second element of Youth Service programmes requires that young people engage in a structured learning programme that enables them to develop their own skills, knowledge and competence and that promotes individual development. This component must also enable young men and women to obtain credits registered on the National Qualifications Framework. The learning interventions should integrate (i) technical skills, (ii) life skills and (iii) experience.
This approach to integrated learning is premised on the belief that technical skills, life skills or experience alone are not adequate to prepare a young person to face the challenges of his/her working life and personal life and that holistic development of the individual must be prioritised. This means that the structured learning must be integrated with the service activities and the different learning components must be delivered and assessed in an integrated manner.
Employment/exit opportunities
The third element of a Youth Service programme is that it must include the identification of real and meaningful employment or exit opportunities for young people at the point of completion.
If this element is not achieved neither are the purposes of Youth Service programmes. As such, it is critical that significant attention is placed on developing and integrating strategies to reduce youth unemployment into individual Youth Service projects.
Young people should be aware of the employment or entrepreneurial opportunities they could realistically access at the end of participating in a youth service programme. At the end of the programme they should have accumulated sufficient experience and competence to be able to access these. Programmes should not engage young people if there is not a clear "exit pathway" that young people can pursue.
In addition, Youth Service programmes must include a post-service component that actively supports young people to access economic opportunities. The programme must have begun the process of identifying and concretising these possible opportunities from the planning stages.
Incentives for youth to participate
National youth service is about involving young people in the development of our country, it is an opportunity for young people to actively serve their communities. It is critical though that the young person participating in Youth Service programme is provided with education and training provided, so that there is a significant increase in opportunities to generate income beyond the project.
Further, participants in a youth service programme should not be financially disadvantaged because of their involvement. For this reason, a stipend may be paid to participants in order to facilitate their involvement in a programme.
Meeting the challenge
The way ahead relies on government departments exploring how national youth service can take forward the priorities within the department. Already certain departments have begun to look at ways of integrating national youth service into their programmes as a way of expanding the reach and impact of their programmes.
This initiative coordinated by the Presidency seeks to support departments to deliver youth service programmes that support the department's objectives as well as the broader vision of young people in service. It is anticipated that a unit within the Presidency will take responsibility for registering youth service programmes (to ensure that these programmes meet the criteria outlined), and provide support to these departments to plan these programmes to ensure their success. Further, through coordinating this programme, it is anticipated that departments can work collaboratively to deliver the programme.
Thus the departments will take responsibility for the delivery of the service, for example:
The Department of Labour has indicated that they will fund the training components of the programme and will provide support to ensure that these skills programmes are meaningful. This will take place through the National Skills Fund as well as with the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) support. Already SETAs are exploring how they can support the activities being proposed by departments, for example the HWSETA is supporting the department in the development of relevant qualifications for community health work.
Other organisations such as the Umsobomvu Youth Fund will support the youth development aspects of the programme as well as the development of exit opportunities.
The youth sector through institutions such as the National Youth Commission will support the programme by identifying opportunities, encouraging young people to serve and advocating for these programmes.
Other players in society such as business and trade unions will also support the programme, and the Growth and Development Summit agreement spells out the manner in which these sectors will support these activities.
Conclusion
In summary, the challenges of youth unemployment are vast and require a coordinated effort to ensure that more and more young people are able to access opportunities. The presidency is suggesting that we should set a target of 7000 young people being actively involved in national youth service by March 2004. This requires that across all spheres of government there is a need to act and consider:
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