Labour experts have warned that matric learners looking to go straight into the job market will face stiff competition as unemployment figures for school leavers were expected to rise to 80% this year.
This comes as Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga is expected to release the 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results later this month, after approximately 923 460 matric learners sat for the final examinations in 2022.
Labour expert Michael Bagraim said he expected the number of school leavers who couldn’t find jobs to rise from the previous year amid stiff competition.
"The figures are getting worse. In 2021 about 75% of school leavers couldn’t find jobs. This year, that figure could rise up to 80%.“
He said following retrenchments in the previous Covid-19 years, the market had shrunk and school leavers would now be competing with those who had been retrenched, as well as tertiary students with academic degrees.
"School leavers will have to take on learnerships and also be prepared to volunteer with some companies or organisations in order to obtain a skill and experience to get ahead of the curve.“
Education experts have predicted that the last year’s matric results might not get worse than the last two years.
The class of 2021 achieved a 76.4 % pass rate, an increase of 0.2 percentage from 2020.
Despite losing up to 50% of time learning at school in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid -19, education expert Mary Metcalfe said based on the matric results for those two years, there was room for hope.
"We have seen from the 2020 and 2021 NSC results that learners didn’t do as badly as might have been expected although there was a decline. We can hope that we have the same limited effect on the class of 2022."
Career coach Ian Houston advised school leavers to do research on the opportunities available, including bursaries and learnerships.
"However, the reality is that there are only so many work opportunities available. Therefore, one may have to deal with disappointment of either not initially securing employment at all, or perhaps taking a job to earn a monthly income, while remaining in pursuit of the work they would prefer doing,“ he said.
Houston also said even though the primary motivation for taking a gap year for those who chose to, the idea remained a "hotly debated" topic among parents. Some were unwilling to "entertain" the option while others were supportive.
"My personal view is that if a decision is made to take a gap year, and if it is for reasons of seeking clarity about a career choice, then it is important to write up a specific goal and objectives of what is to be achieved by the agreed date."
Houston added that from Grade 9 learners should narrow down possible career options, selecting the appropriate subjects for Grade 10 to 12 that will enable career options.
This week, the EFF criticised the "late release" of the matric results, saying this would place a burden on parents and learners.
However, Metcalfe said universities and TVET Colleges had factored this aspect into their planning.
While all eyes will be on Motshekga on Thursday, the old tradition of matrics buying up newspapers to check if they have passed may soon become a thing of the past.
Last year, the department announced that it would publish matric results in news media only for those learners and parents who signed a consent form.
The department said the decision was in compliance with the Protection Of Personal Information (POPI) Act.
Afriforum, which took the department to court last year over its initial decision to not publicise the results, said it was satisfied with the compromise of only revealing examination numbers instead of names.
Afriforum’s Alana Bailey said the introduction of a consent form was "unnecessary" and created a red tape.
"They have now created an extra administrative duty to update the details on the consent form and to keep them up to date just before the release of the results,“ said Bailey.
Other teacher bodies including the Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwys Unie (SAOU) and South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadut) welcomed the move.
“Let’s be honest, the only person who is interested in the individual result, is the individual him/herself. Such information can now be obtained by a myriad of other electronic media and our experience is that learners and parents prefer the other platform,” SAOU’s CEO, Chris Klopper said.
Sadtu spokesperson Nomusa Cembi called for the scrapping of the results altogether as it "causes huge anxiety to learners causing some to commit suicide".
Weekend Argus