We must work to ensure that better prospects await the Class of 2024

Dear Fellow South African, 

Today is the start of the National Senior Certificate exams. Just over 880,000 candidates will sit this year’s matric exams.

On behalf of the government I wish all our learners well at this challenging and exciting time. These exams are the culmination of many years of hard work, perseverance and resilience, often in the face of difficult odds. 

The Class of 2024 entered Grade 8 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and have had to receive considerable learning support to overcome the resultant gaps in their learning.

As a nation, we are proud of the learners who will be rewriting the matric exam this year, having taken advantage of the Department of Basic Education’s Second Chance Programme. Your determination to improve your academic prospects does you credit. It is a life lesson on the importance of not giving up.

Over the past few weeks, learners have been engrossed in study. They have taken up opportunities for extra lessons, doing revision with their educators and attending the many learner support programmes being run by the provincial departments of education. 

Providing learners with the necessary resources to enable them to achieve quality pass rates is a collaborative effort between the Department of Basic Education, provincial education authorities, school governing bodies and families of learners.

I commend our nation’s educators for their commitment to our matriculants as they reach the end of their secondary school journey. At the annual National Teaching Awards ceremony earlier this month, I spoke of teachers as being like devoted gardeners, whose attention, guidance and encouragement nurtures our nation. The successes that the Class of 2024 will undoubtedly achieve will be in no small part due to the efforts of our country’s devoted teachers. 

All the necessary systems are in place to ensure the exam period goes smoothly. The Department of Basic Education and the qualification standards authority Umalusi have been hard at work auditing the more than 9,200 exam centres, appointing and vetting exam markers and approving question papers. These include adapted question papers for learners with special needs.

The department has put stringent conditions in place to minimise the potential for question paper leaks, fraud and cheating. Additional invigilators have been appointed, some examination centres will employ CCTV and security has been stepped up at exam venues to minimise disruptions.

I want to thank all the matric exam candidates across the country who have signed the NSC Examination Code of Conduct. This commits them to academic honesty during the exam.

The unemployment rate among young people aged 15-24 stands at 60.8%, according to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey. 

Just as preparing our nation’s young people to achieve success in this exam is a collaborative effort, there is much more that partners like the private sector can do to hire young people.

We once again call on employers to relax the requirement of prior work experience, particularly for entry-level positions, and for entry into vocational occupations where young employees can be trained on the job.

Employers should take advantage of incentives to encourage them to hire more young people. These include various sectoral learnership agreements, discretionary grants for skills training, and the Employee Tax Incentive.

Recent business premises inspections by the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Employment and Labour have thrown into sharp relief the contentious issue of some employers preferring to employ foreign nationals and illegal immigrants. 

Employers must instead open up more opportunities for young South Africans entering the job market. They need to remember that by law they have to ensure that no suitable South African citizen or permanent resident is available to fill a position before employing a foreign national. This is an established practice around the world.

As all of society, we have a responsibility to ensure that the morale of the Class of 2024 is boosted by knowing their hard work and sacrifices will be rewarded. 

Let us continue to work together to ensure that the latest cohort of matriculants find the opportunities for employment or further education and training that they deserve.