Alan Committie has been performing sell-out shows in Montecasino over the past couple of weeks. It’s the 28th iteration of his annual stand-up comedy – and he never fails to disappoint.
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One of his standout gags in his current routine is the punchline to his unfeigned joy at his nephew’s recent graduation from a Johannesburg university with a BA degree.
Committie suggests to his sister that they chip in together to buy her son a car – so that he can become an Uber driver because that’s all his degree will be worth.
Punching down on BA degrees (Bugger All to the uninitiated) is probably as old as the degree itself. But the reality is that a degree is no magic wand against joblessness.
South African youth unemployment is one of the highest in the world. But even if you can get to a university and graduate – two very difficult barriers all on their own, you’re still not guaranteed of finding a job.
It’s something we don’t speak about enough. We fixate on the matric rate, without seeing the disconnect between the actual available places and those who quality for entry to universities.
We ignore the fact that even if people qualify for a place, there’s an often insurmountable battle to pay for it. Then, once they’re in and passing (another hidden challenge all of its own), there’s not too much opportunity once they graduate.
We fixate on potholes, broken street lamps and water gushing out of broken municipal pipes, but just as great a problem is our unemployed graduates. They are, irrespective of the degrees they’ve received, the cream of the crop – and we’re failing them.
The lucky ones can go overseas to try their luck there, but the fact that we don’t have enough demand at home to soak up the supply shows just how poorly our economy is doing.
If there’s no place for tomorrow’s leaders, then what future is there for the rest of us?
We’ve got municipal elections this year, but the campaigning can’t just be around the pork barrel issues, it must be greater than that.
If we don’t have enough of the kind of companies that can find work for graduates, then we need to create opportunities for them to start their own and make their own futures.
Driving Uber taxis, though, shouldn’t be the only option – even if it does mean that the conversation will be slightly more highbrow.