I cannot help thinking that white South African business leaders have had basically a generation to make this right, and have not. Surely, they saw hiring equity coming as early as 1991. It was only a matter of time. Perhaps they should have considered scholarship programs to help the "underprivileged" get the education they would need in order to compete in the job market. There were plenty of ways business leaders could have assisted in the transformation of South Africa. Government, particularly one that probably has more than its fair share of corruption, can not be expected to solve every problem. Thirty-four years and business owners are only now confronting this? That is shameful.
Brad, I cannot speak for all business owners, but I would argue that there is (and has been) substantial demand to appoint black South Africans.
The problem is on the supply side. Let's take our example of engineers. To train an engineer, one would need to give a scholarship to someone with high math competency. As Currency News reported earlier this year, almost a third of students who wrote mathematics in their final year of school in South Africa failed the subject: of the 235,703 students writing, 74,227 achieved less than 30%. Most of the students who passed scored under 50% and only 9635 achieved a distinction.
If it was indeed only a demand-side problem, you would expect black-owned businesses to not have similar frustrations in finding skilled black employees. It would also be hard to explain the almost 50% unemployment rate amongst black youth.
I appreciate your response. I am in Canada where we are pummeled by the daily news coming out of the USA. If my response seemed harsh, it was only because of the recent topsy-turvy rhetoric that is coming out of the White House that in my mind is a completely false narrative. That said, I am very sympathetic to the plight of all South Africans and abhor the violence and crime that have reached epic proportions.
I read a lot about your country, although I assume much of it is through a lens of the evil that was Apartheid. What I see lacking in South Africa is the notion of "collective guilt" among white South Africans and Afrikaners. Perhaps the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was too targeted, and spared the majority of whites from the reality that they all shared in the building and maintaining of the Apartheid system, and that the responsibility for righting this wrong must be passed down to younger generations who in fact may not have even been born before 1991.
We have a similar issue here in Canada with our First Nations People. We also had Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was active from 2008 to 2015. The findings, particularly its 94 Calls to Action, have made Canadians more aware of the plight of First Nations peoples and the legacy of residential school. While the findings have led to increased awareness and some efforts at reconciliation.
Sure, it is a complex process for both our nations and there are of course huge differences, as Canada's crimes were for the most part ended by the 1960's and of course, First Nations People only represent about 10% of our population. In turn, our successive governments have paid lip-service to many of the "call for action" and have failed to implement about half of them so far.
But business has generally stepped up to assist, both independently and in cooperation with government programs and we have seen some success. Obviously education is the cornerstone to all of this, and it is my understanding that among the non-white populous in South Africa, of the 25% who go onto third level education (college/university), the unemployment rate is only 10%. So I guess the biggest challenge is to keep kids in school and really help prepare them at the primary and secondary levels.
So it is all of this that was in my mind when I composed my first email. I thank you for your patience with someone who is not South African and probably has known and unknown biases that you can clearly see.
I cannot help thinking that white South African business leaders have had basically a generation to make this right, and have not. Surely, they saw hiring equity coming as early as 1991. It was only a matter of time. Perhaps they should have considered scholarship programs to help the "underprivileged" get the education they would need in order to compete in the job market. There were plenty of ways business leaders could have assisted in the transformation of South Africa. Government, particularly one that probably has more than its fair share of corruption, can not be expected to solve every problem. Thirty-four years and business owners are only now confronting this? That is shameful.
Brad, I cannot speak for all business owners, but I would argue that there is (and has been) substantial demand to appoint black South Africans.
The problem is on the supply side. Let's take our example of engineers. To train an engineer, one would need to give a scholarship to someone with high math competency. As Currency News reported earlier this year, almost a third of students who wrote mathematics in their final year of school in South Africa failed the subject: of the 235,703 students writing, 74,227 achieved less than 30%. Most of the students who passed scored under 50% and only 9635 achieved a distinction.
If it was indeed only a demand-side problem, you would expect black-owned businesses to not have similar frustrations in finding skilled black employees. It would also be hard to explain the almost 50% unemployment rate amongst black youth.
Hello Johan,
I appreciate your response. I am in Canada where we are pummeled by the daily news coming out of the USA. If my response seemed harsh, it was only because of the recent topsy-turvy rhetoric that is coming out of the White House that in my mind is a completely false narrative. That said, I am very sympathetic to the plight of all South Africans and abhor the violence and crime that have reached epic proportions.
I read a lot about your country, although I assume much of it is through a lens of the evil that was Apartheid. What I see lacking in South Africa is the notion of "collective guilt" among white South Africans and Afrikaners. Perhaps the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was too targeted, and spared the majority of whites from the reality that they all shared in the building and maintaining of the Apartheid system, and that the responsibility for righting this wrong must be passed down to younger generations who in fact may not have even been born before 1991.
We have a similar issue here in Canada with our First Nations People. We also had Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was active from 2008 to 2015. The findings, particularly its 94 Calls to Action, have made Canadians more aware of the plight of First Nations peoples and the legacy of residential school. While the findings have led to increased awareness and some efforts at reconciliation.
Sure, it is a complex process for both our nations and there are of course huge differences, as Canada's crimes were for the most part ended by the 1960's and of course, First Nations People only represent about 10% of our population. In turn, our successive governments have paid lip-service to many of the "call for action" and have failed to implement about half of them so far.
But business has generally stepped up to assist, both independently and in cooperation with government programs and we have seen some success. Obviously education is the cornerstone to all of this, and it is my understanding that among the non-white populous in South Africa, of the 25% who go onto third level education (college/university), the unemployment rate is only 10%. So I guess the biggest challenge is to keep kids in school and really help prepare them at the primary and secondary levels.
So it is all of this that was in my mind when I composed my first email. I thank you for your patience with someone who is not South African and probably has known and unknown biases that you can clearly see.