By Daanyaal Matthews
With the unemployment rate in South Africa sitting at unprecedented levels, questions surrounding the future of South African youth continues, and, with the matric examinations set to begin next week, the question ‘What the country’s youth can do to better their prospective employment’ is at the fore.
According to Dr. Bronwyn Le Ann Batchelor, Head of Faculty at The Independent Institute of Education, students and parents should begin planning potential career paths while studying in high school through the proper selection of subjects, stating:
“It’s important that our students and our parents don’t take the ‘wait and see’ when determining the student’s career path because we see that if a student does that, they really are limiting their career potential and options.”
A common issue in high school is the selection of subjects with some students committing to a discipline that does not suit their capabilities leading to struggles in the latter part of their schooling career. For Batchelor, the choices of students are often made by considering standards of years prior and applying them to the present day without considering the present landscape in tertiary education.
“What a student may think is possible may be based on old information, and we are also seeing a steep rise in entrepreneurial endeavours by new graduates, and it’s important that students are able to leverage their own skillsets and, in the long run, create further employment for others. So, there’s a whole mind shift that needs to take place from just thinking that one will attain a job to more thinking about your own growth potential, earning potential, and as a career,” argued the education expert.
Listen to the full interview here:
VOCNews
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