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IOL News
4 days ago
- Politics
- IOL News
Understanding the Challenges Facing South Africa's Youth in 2025
Dr Sheetal Bhoola is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Zululand, and the director at StellarMaths (Sunningdale). Picture: Supplied Image: Supplied THE month of June brings South Africa's youth to the fore. Youth Month is all about understanding the role youth play in society and determining how we can meet their needs as a society and community. The youth of South Africa constitute approximately one-third of South Africa's population and comprise individuals who are between the ages of 15 and 34 years. Recent years in South Africa have been difficult for youth in our country. We have had a staggering ratio of youth unemployment coupled with schools being poorly resourced with teachers and materials for effective teaching and learning to take place. In addition, many of our youth have become victims of sexual harassment and various forms of violence on school premises. Video Player is loading. 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Next Stay Close ✕ The sense of belonging and safety within the school community has been eroded and further exacerbated by the increasing number of teachers who have been the perpetrators and or have been witnesses to these incidents but have opted to be silent. Parents and children now question their safety on the premises, and amidst school teachers and principals. Schools in particular have no longer become safe spaces for our youth and it is overwhelming for many. Also, these children have to focus on improving academic focus and achievement and try to identify their academic strengths and weaknesses to facilitate the development of a career after schooling years. Our youth are constantly struggling with developing careers post-school and university as many graduates are not absorbed by the formal economy. During research encounters, I have met young unemployed graduates who seek to create a livelihood in entrepreneurship as a means of survival and in some cases have no correlation with their qualifications. But more importantly, university pass rates are low nationally, and in present times, the university student drop-out rate is high. It has been reported that approximately 50% of first-year level students drop out and the reasons are multiple. In 2023, it was reported that only 7.3% of South Africans between the ages of 25 and older have a degree, despite the numerous efforts of the government to fund education at tertiary educational institutions. Statistics South Africa has reported that the unemployment rate among young females was estimated at 49,4% in 2024, and the reasons varied. Central to the motivation as to why women also choose to be unemployed during their years of youth is that they may be young and new mothers as aligned with the female biological clock and other family responsibilities. These responsibilities can impede their educational attainment and, subsequently, their advancement within the South African labor market. Other reasons include a lack of appropriate career counseling, lack of financial and academic support as well as poor academic performance which are often associated with work or family commitments. The need to address the high student dropout rate should be prioritised and it can begin by understanding why. It was also reported that approximately one in two Technikon first-year students tend to drop out and in the majority of cases they have not had appropriate and encouraging career counseling. The need for youth to empower themselves through educational and social upliftment has to be reinforced through mass media engagements and public discourses. We have a huge drug and alcohol consumption problem among our youth too, and research has indicated that the consumption of drugs and alcohol contributes to poor academic performance, leaving schoolgoers feeling discouraged and leaving, whereas university students drop out. Career counseling should become a mandatory component of school curriculums nationally, especially at the onset of secondary school. Youth need to be guided appropriately and in detail. They need to be informed about how subject choices can impact the trajectory of their career and educational development after completing Grade 12. The majority of South African youth need to be fully informed of what it takes to build a career and understand the importance of setting goals for themselves. To complement this, learners need to be taught appropriate study skills so that their academic performance can be enhanced. Study skills are a lifelong tool that is required by every individual to learn and develop through educational systems. Often youth are left to develop these skills independently and somewhat struggle to identify a study approach that is best suited to their needs, challenges, and personalities. Youth need to be taught how to absorb, process, and retain information that they are taught in the schooling and tertiary education environments. These skills need to be taught and can be learned through specific exercises combined with time management skills.
IOL News
22-05-2025
- General
- IOL News
Understanding misinformation and malinformation in South Africa
Dr Sheetal Bhoola is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Zululand, and the director at StellarMaths (Sunningdale). Picture: Supplied Image: Supplied MISINFORMATION and malinformation have become a norm within our society today. Yet many South Africans believe advice or any other information simply because it appears on a variety of social media platforms. Then there are numerous examples where we visibly note that correct and accurate information is communicated to citizens on these platforms. The combined blend of inaccurate and accurate information also gives rise to people believing unverified stories, the perspectives of an individual and the continual spread of malinformation. A recent example is the myth of white genocide in South Africa which has once again given the rest of the world a marred image of democratic South Africa which upholds fair and just principles and values. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ As Editor Ayanda Mduli points out in his article 'The myth of white genocide in South Africa: The US Knows the misinformation but doesn't care' the narratives of the past coupled with misinformation has overshadowed present day South Africa and the real circumstances around this controversy. Herewith we can now understand the numerous motivations behind the 'Afrikaner Trek' which include misinformation and malinformation. The present escalating crime rate is a challenge for every South African irrespective of class and age grouping, racial categorisation and ethnicity, but it is now widely believed that only the farmers are primarily the victims of crime and genocide in South Africa. During the year of 2024, there were approximately 26 000 murders in South Africa of people of all racial groupings. This amounted to approximately 72 persons per day being murdered. Of these 72 persons, South Africans of all races, ages and ethnic groupings have been murdered. The widespread dispersion of The Afrikaner genocide and related information has excluded the recent murder statistics of 2024 in South Africa. The intent was to exacerbate the prevalence and bring the timeliness of the Afrikaner genocide to the present. Understanding what malinformation is and how it is used is central to dividing information that is accurate and inaccurate and comprehending the information within reason. Malinformation is a description of information that is accurate and correct but taken out of its context. Often its personal perceptions that can enable this process and the information is then used to mislead, harm, or manipulate the mind of another deliberately. Misinformation on the other hand makes reference to false or inaccurate facts or information that is deliberately used to mislead and deceive people. Often misinformation is spread through informal channels such as conversations and messages which primarily aim to serve purposes that have no association or relevance to the facts. These purposes are usually social and psychological needs of an individual and can often serve to entertain people within social settings or be sued as conversation pointers. In these instances, we can confidently say that's where rumours derive from and how they are spread. Malinformation plays a central role in contributing towards rumours as well, as the incorrect context of accurate information can modify the information's value and originality. We now have to deal with a flurry of online falsehoods and often people do not have the time or skills to dissect the information. The challenge is greater when misinformation is used to instil fear within people within the communities and when real confusion is created. The other challenge is when people or even victims of crime misinterpret and mischaracterise their own experiences and the experiences of others, which also contributes to the spread of false information. People have to make a choice to be fully informed before deriving at their own conclusions, beliefs and opinion of circumstances, situations, and the hearsay that may influence their mindset.
IOL News
07-05-2025
- IOL News
School environments remain fertile ground for sexual harassment of children
Dr Sheetal Bhoola is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Zululand, and the director at StellarMaths (Sunningdale). Picture: Supplied In recent years, the South African government has engaged in campaigns to alert us about gender-based violence and power imbalances between men and women. Despite their efforts, there are continual incidents of rape and various types of sexual harassment and violence that persists in South Africa. The alarming fact is that these incidents at schools are still very much prevalent, which indicates that we are still grooming future South Africans to be patriarchal and dismissive of respect for the female human being. More than often, it is girls who are often being targeted as victims of sexual harassment rather than males and the frequency of these incidents have normalised a notion that in South Africa, most women at some point will experience sexual harassment or a violence-related crime, based on their gender identification. The number of sexual harassment incidents reported have only escalated in recent years despite the fact that schools are meant to be safe spaces for our children within our young democratic society. Schools are also meant to play a pivotal role in developing the child holistically and teaching children about human rights, gender discrimination and the importance of human respect irrespective of race, gender and sexual orientation. The recent incident involving a male educator sexually harassing a girl learner via text messages also indicates that sexual violence in schools involve the educators and other key players. These are adults that children and parents supposedly need to trust as their caregivers whilst the school day is in progress. Girl child victims of school sexual violence have also contributed towards the high rate of girl and teenage pregnancies, which results in these young learners dropping out of school and fundamentally joining the high ratio of youth unemployment in South Africa. The impact of a schooling environment that is deemed unsafe because of violence in schools has a detrimental impact on learners that intend to complete their secondary school qualification, but opt to dropout because they do not have the skills, emotional maturity and coping mechanisms to cope with a variety of behavioural ills within school communities. Buildings that have been neglected and dilapidated on school grounds have given perpetrators of sexual harassment a space to 'corner or trap' their identified victims and it is in those quiet spaces where it has been reported that girls are inappropriately touched and spoken to whilst they are at school. These spaces have also become hubs for children that opt to utilise their break period to engage in drugs, bullying and other forms of violent activities. Girls have also reported being victimised and physically harmed if they opted not to engage in a sexual relationship with a boy learner that is older than them at school. In some instances, girls have opted to remain silent about their sexual harassment experiences as they are being financially supported by older male perpetrators. Herewith, we see the strong inter-dependency of permissive ills and poverty in our society. Violence and sexual misconduct becomes acceptable because victims of poverty and challenging socio-economic conditions opt to be acceptable to this behaviour for the purposes of monetary game. Young teenage girls sometimes are coerced to earn money in this manner because of the lack of resources within their impoverished households. The central problem lies in the way we perceive and normalise sexual harassment and why the boychild and young adolescent boys feel its is acceptable for them to be perpetrators of sexual violence. Schools need to make an ardent effort to ensure that there is a teaching and learning focus on gender respect, and appropriate behaviour. Children need to understand that there are dire consequences for inappropriate conduct and that there is a great impact on victims and the perpetrators of sexual harassment and related violent behavioural patterns. The department of Education has to engage with schools to address this amidst a flurry of other urgent issues that all seem to fall away because of the continual focus on the lack of funds. Yet again, it has been reported that Grade R teachers are yet to be paid salaries in KwaZulu-Natal and in addition, it was recently revealed that there is a cumulative debt in this sector. The reality is that if the financial woes within the Department of Education remain unaddressed, other issues will continue to be sidelined. We attempt to prioritise early learning development of every South African child, yet Grade R teachers go without being paid timeously and we still experience unclarified and unjustified fund mismanagement within these departments. The paradoxes continue despite the fact that educational plays a key in developing a society that is progressive, literate and economically functional. The Department of Education needs to address their multiple concerns that have culminated from the lack of good governance strategies and principles. DAILY NEWS
