The problmatique called youth unemployment

475,Correspondent,, | Sunday May 17, 2015 00:00

In the consequent, some social commentators, yours truly to be specific, have been guillotined, vilified etc on social media such as Facebook.

The guillotining, lynching and vilification has been taken beyond the social media as amply instanced by an opinion piece by Kago Mokotedi on Mmegi and The Botswana Gazette newspapers [Graduate Volunteer Scheme – mediocrity at its best] on 14 April, 2015. This piece is actuated by Mokotedi’s opinion letter and past Facebook posts and, primarily, seeks to address the principles of the debate on youth unemployment.

Unemployment means different things to different people, therefore, it suffers from definitional issues and debates around unemployment elicit impassioned debates as sufficiently instanced by the on-going war against me in the media. In this article, we use the International Labour Organisation’s definition.

The unemployed comprise all persons above a specified age who during the reference period were; without work, that is, were not in paid employment or self-employment during the reference period; currently available for work, that is, were available for paid employment or self-employment during the reference period; and seeking work, that is, had taken specific steps in a specified recent period to seek paid employment or self-employment. By no means is this definition undisputed but it is a working definition for this article. Unemployment is wide and assumes very many dimensions and facets and, therefore, its causes are many and varied.

It is an intractable development challenge and the Minister of Finance and Development planning, Kenneth Matambo, labelled it a stubborn problem when delivering the 2013/14 Budget Speech. As a result, job creation is one of the key priorities after poverty eradication and economic diversification. This is a war that is yet to be won, for the official unemployment rate is 18%. For the youth section of the population, the official unemployment rate is 24%. By any standards, this is high and we often see the plight of unemployed youths. The problem is closer than some of my detractors think, for my sisters, brothers, cousins etc constitute the army of the unemployed youth in Botswana.

There are many causes of youth unemployment; some being: lack of particular skills, wrong educational system, mismatches between education and needs in labour market and structural lack of working places (Youth Unemployment Project, 2015; Youth Unemployment).

The consequences are sometimes too ghastly to contemplate as next illustrated. Unemployment has a negative effect, not only on the future employability of young people but also on their self-esteem; increase in the risk of poverty, de-skilling and social exclusion as well as cause loss of motivation and mental health problems (Bridging Europe, 2014; consequences of high youth unemployment).

Nobody, no matter how callous they are, can jubilate over these effects on the unemployed youth. Sadly, these consequences will manifest on our youth if we do not find a long-term solution to youth unemployment.

Youth unemployment is an intractable public policy issue which is multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered, thus, needs a cocktail of solutions in the short, medium and long terms. In a way, it is like a viral infection that needs a cocktail of anti-virals. Notably, the government of Botswana is cognisant of the fact that youth unemployment is a problem and, amongst others, intends to address it within the framework of the National Youth Policy (2010).

To this end, youth employment schemes have been introduced. Examples are the Youth Empowerment Scheme, launched during the Youth Employment Summit on 4 June, 2012 by then Minster of Youth Sport and Culture, Out of School Youth Grant, Young Farmers Fund and Youth Development Fund. In a related vein, job-shadowing and experience-gaining schemes have been introduced in the form of the National Internship Programme and National Service Scheme.

Recently, the Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture introduced the Graduate Volunteer Scheme (GVS). The GVS is meant for unemployed youth who are also not in the Internship programme. It is intended to achieve some of the following objectives: facilitate skills development and transfer to young graduates, contribute to community development; promote the spirit of volunteerism, improve resilience of the graduate youth; and reduce idle time.

As can readily be deduced from the foregoing, the GVS has multiple objectives. It is yet to take root and it is unknown and unknowable whether it will achieve the intended many and varied objectives.

As a Motswana who enjoys an unfettered right to comment on public issues, I gave a taped interview to YaronaFM radio on 9 April on the GVS. The interview was transcribed into a news story headlined “UB professor hails the GVS’ and it was also erroneously stated that ‘I was a professor of economics’. I will not be held for inaccuracies contained in the article, mainly, that ‘I hailed the GVS programme’ and that I am ‘a professor of economics’, to the disgust of some Facebook enthusiasts.

To some people, my comments were interpreted to mean that I praised, commended and said ‘hallelujah!’ to the GVS. No! Far from it; I said that it was a good stop-gap measure that will favourably circumstance graduates to job-shadow, gain skills and experience while waiting for permanent jobs. I am not concerned with nitty-gritties such as the allowances. 

However, I stated that P600 was too little. For the long term, I said that we needed to make sure that the suppliers (e.g. UB) produced the product that the market needed, and that we needed to bias training towards trades. If one listened to the audio interview, one would have heard me say all those things. In the subsequent, some read the story, others piggy-backed on those who read the story and others picked the lead on Facebook and unleashed an unprovoked war on me.

I am dismayed that when my comments were critiqued on Facebook, the issue was not about the comments but my person and professional integrity. One enthusiast even checked my academic profile and I was given an assemblage of names, for example,  ‘lelopi’, ‘mo-domkraga’ (I am not a member of the BDP) and my analyses, inclusive of the GVS,  Budget Speeches etc were dismissed as ‘misguided’. I engaged with my Facebook critics and explained my side of the story between Saturday and Monday.

Those with an axe to grind continued the onslaught and took the fight to the mainstream media as amply instanced by an opinion piece by Kago Mokotedi on Mmegi and The Botswana Gazette newspapers. The opinion article that was published by both Mmegi and The Botswana Gazette newspapers, carried on with the Facebook-like imbroglio of insulting, vilifying, guillotining and lynching my person.

Admittedly, Facebook posts are unedited, however, the same cannot be said of newspaper articles. Given that there are gate-keepers in these newspapers, how come derogatory words such as ‘reckless and irresponsible words attributed to Professor Emmanuel Botlhale (Mokotedi, 2014)’ were printed without being expunged from the text?

I wish to state the obvious; I am a bonafide member of this democratic society, therefore, are unqualifiedly befitted to partake in public debates. My expertise and academic titles are side issues. Vitally, I engage in public debates as a Motswana, not as a professor. The professorship makes me no Solomon.

Thus, I urge my country men and women that we engage in public debates as Batswana without assigning titles to others. In addition, let us engage in public debates such as the GVS, poverty, income inequality etc without sullying, vilifying and guillotining the opinions of others. Yes, I am willing to be engaged on account of my public comments on the GVS, Budget Speeches etc.

However, these debates should be conducted under a framework of civility, botho and maitseo (common manners). Also, I think it is wrong to imagine that the fact that I saw positives in the GVS bespeaks my ‘shallowness’, ‘misguidedness’, ‘irresponsibility’, ‘recklessness’ etc. By the same analogy, I conclude that had I rubbished the GVS and also Budget Speeches and State of the Nation Addresses etc., as some people so desperately wish, I would be a smart professor! Nobody would be dreamily agitating for the recall of my hard-earned professorship by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Botswana.

Importantly, let me reiterate that my stance on the GVS remains unchanged. I support, not ‘hail’, it in principle for I firmly appreciate its potential as a job-shadowing short-term initiative while preparing our graduates for permanent jobs. In fact, job-shadowing is a best practice method all over the world. Nitty-gritties such as the P600 allowance are not my concerns. At the same time, I wonder, if the allowance was P6,000, would the reaction be this emotional from my detractors? I do not think so.

Finally, let me firmly assure all those who insulted me on Facebook and mainstream media that I will defend, to the death, their right to critique me. However, they must be warned that incendiary comments constitute crimes under the Cyber Crime Act and related acts and, thus, I am may be minded to sue some of them if these attacks continue in the future.

 

Professor Emmanuel Botlhale

University of Botswana