Who really deserves a pass mark?
· Citizen
The jacarandas have started blooming in Johannesburg and Pretoria. It’s a harbinger of the end of the year.
If you haven’t started studying for your matric finals by now, it’s too late, according to the old saying.
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By the time the class of 2026 is mid-script, we should all be in the middle of the local government elections.
More than the odd party agent – and perhaps even a secretary-general – will be having a squeaky bum moment to see if they’ve done enough to scrape through this test of their organisational skill.
Given the probable turnout, the other irony is that you don’t need 50% of the electorate to pass and take your seat, you just need 50% of those who actually pitch up to make their cross for you.
There are cynics aplenty who speak derisively of a bachelor’s degree pass (without the requisite armful of distinctions), and even more contemptuously of a higher certificate pass, little understanding that we have councillors who got into office on less percentage points than it takes to get the most basic matric.
It is said we get the government we vote for, but do our school leavers get the chance they deserve?
There’s plenty said about the tragic dropout rate between Grade 1 and those who will be shortly sitting down to write their final exams.
Even more will be said when the results are announced and the race starts for a place in higher learning.
Not everyone who gets in will make it through in the allotted time – but for those who do graduate, there’s the reality of one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world: almost half of all South Africans between the ages of 15 and 34 are unemployed.
Given the blooming of the jacarandas, what are our political options saying about this, should they get elected next month?
Don’t think that job creation is solely a national competency, there is plenty that municipalities can do to create employment by creating opportunities and removing the red tape to let small and micro entrepreneurs start businesses and scale.
It’s all very well to speak about service delivery when everyone is paying for the services they receive, it’s a different matter altogether when people can’t get jobs but still need the services.
To think anything else, is like trying to order your World-Class African City through Temu.