YCLSA welcomes consultative process for a National Youth Policy The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] welcomes the consultative process towards a National Youth Policy as unveiled by the Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Buti Manamela, yesterday. The draft youth policy is focusing on the following four key areas: economic participation, skills development, behavioural change and social cohesion and nation building. As the YCLSA we are more interested in both economic participation and skills development. Young people in the country are excluded in economic participation and are in dire need of skills development. As the YCLSA we call for the following to be prioritised: • Low-end skills and sustainable youth jobs with specific targets agreed to by various sectors of the economy, driven in the same way as the PICC and the IPAP; • A bottom-up approach of youth enterprise and co-operatives development instead of an elite and top-down approach of the creation of a so-called black industrialists; • Focus on the development of the productive capacity of our local economy in manufacturing to satisfy the 70% commitment for local procurement; • Stringent commitments by the private sector on localized reinvestment and employment creation, especially major industries such as mining, finance, services, manufacturing and agriculture; • The filling of state-funded vacancies; • The reopening of colleges of education, nursing and agriculture; • Clear strategies on local beneficiation of mineral resources and other raw materials, including the nationalisation of SASOL and ARCELLO-Mittal or the creation of national steel company; • Strengthening our work in education and skills development through existing Technical and Vocational Education and Training institution and the Sector Education and Training Authorities; and • The consolidation co-ordination of Community Works Programme, Community Development Work, Extended Publics Works Programme and the National Youth Service • YCLSA will call for a reassessment of government youth empowerment machinery and programme to ensure better alignment, coordination and mainstreaming of youth empowerment in core programmes. We welcome the intention by government to ensure that 50% of people who are employed across all industries are between the ages of 18 to 35. To this end, as the YCLSA we will continue to call for the age of retirement to be reduced for males to 60 like that of females. As the YCLSA we will make our submissions on the youth policy formulation process and make sure that we influence its outcomes. Issued by YCLSA Media For more information contact: Khaya Xaba YCLSA National Spokesperson Cell: 074 5 204 204 @chedetachment ycl.org.za
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:03:47 +0000
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