Every year, South Africans commemorate June 16 by remembering the courage of the young people who challenged apartheid’s education system in 1976.
Their struggle was fundamentally about education. They rejected an inferior system designed to limit their opportunities and determine their future before they had even entered adulthood.
Nearly 50 years later and more than 30 years into democracy, perhaps the most important question is this: if the youth of 1976 were marching today, what would they demand?
The answer would probably unite South Africans more than divide them.
They would demand decent schools; they would demand skills; they would demand jobs. And they would demand a fair chance to build a life of dignity.
June 16 offers the government of national unity (GNU) an important opportunity. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address should not allow Youth Day to become another predictable state event filled with old slogans, wreaths and political speeches. He is, after all, the leader of the GNU, and should, for once, put the nation’s best interests first.
The struggle of 1976 was against political and educational exclusion. The struggle facing today’s youth is economic exclusion.
Youth unemployment does not ask whether you are black, white, coloured or Indian. A weak education system does not hurt one political party. A skills shortage damages the whole economy. A lack of opportunity affects families and communities across the country.
Today, Youth Day should focus our attention on a different challenge: building a country that works for its young people.
Economic exclusion
This year’s Youth Month theme is “Skills for a Changing World – Empowering Youth for Meaningful Economic Participation”. That theme speaks to an uncomfortable truth. South Africa’s greatest challenge is no longer political liberation. It is economic inclusion.
For too long, June 16 has been treated mainly as a day of remembrance. There is nothing wrong with remembering Hector Pieterson and the bravery of the Soweto generation. But we spend too much time looking back and too little time asking whether today’s young people are receiving the education, skills and opportunities that the youth of 1976 died for.
Neither Nelson Mandela nor Desmond Tutu would have wanted Youth Day to become a day of empty ceremony. They would have expected South Africans to ask whether our schools are preparing young people to succeed in the modern world.
That question forces us to confront a reality we often avoid.
According to Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of 2026, the unemployment rate among those aged 15 to 24 stands at 60.9%. More alarming still, 37.6% of young people in that age group are not in employment, education or training.
The pipeline into the labour market, however, breaks long before then. Of every 100 children who start grade 1, roughly 40 will not make it to matric, dropping out at a rate that accelerates sharply from grade 9.
And even though South Africa’s matric pass rate is at a record 88%, school leavers aren’t prepared for work or university: only 34% of candidates wrote mathematics; and, to pass, pupils need only 40% in their home language, 40% in two other subjects, and 30% in another three, passing six of seven subjects.
The education backlog
This is not for want of spending. South Africa allocates close to 21% of total government expenditure to education; unfortunately, most of that goes to teacher salaries, leaving too little for infrastructure, materials and the targeted support that keeps at-risk learners in school. Subject knowledge among teachers – particularly in maths and science – is weak in many rural and township schools, and the union environment has made it difficult to address underperformance or redeploy staff.
Foundational learning collapses early: international assessments consistently place South African grade 4 and grade 5 learners near the bottom globally in reading and numeracy, and a child who cannot read for meaning by grade 3 carries that deficit through every subsequent year. Most children are taught in their home language for the first three years, then abruptly switched to English or Afrikaans – a transition many never master.
Apartheid ended in 1994, yet children still experience very different educational realities depending on where they live. The 1976 generation protested against exclusion from quality education. Today’s generation faces unequal access to it. That is why education reform must be treated as part of nation-building.
The Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, which gives the provincial education department the authority to set a school’s language policy, will not solve every problem. No single law can. But if implemented fairly, it should help South Africa move towards a public education system that serves the broader public interest.
Rally together around common causes
June 16 should become a day when young South Africans campaign together around common causes – literacy, mathematics, coding, entrepreneurship, school safety and employment. Imagine if young South Africans from every community marched together for better schools, safer communities and more jobs. That would honour the spirit of 1976 better than another round of political point-scoring.
For many young South Africans, though, Youth Day has become just another public holiday. Thousands spend it drinking, partying and gathering on street corners. There is nothing wrong with celebration. But June 16 was never meant to be just another day off.
The youth of 1976 marched for a purpose bigger than themselves. Millions of young South Africans today wake up with no job to go to, no training programme to attend and little hope that their lives will change. A young person with no work and no prospects can easily lose hope – recruited into violent protests, manipulated by politicians seeking numbers rather than solutions, pulled into alcohol abuse, drugs and crime. This is not because young people have failed South Africa. It is because South Africa has not created enough pathways to opportunity.
The rise of xenophobic violence in some communities should also worry us. Too often, unemployed young people are encouraged to direct their anger at fellow Africans instead of the conditions that create poverty, exclusion and unemployment. The legacy of 1976 should never be used to justify hatred of others.
A day of service
Ramaphosa must rally his GNU – its political leaders, ministers and departments – and challenge the country to turn June 16 into a national day of service, learning, mentoring and community-building. That means businesses opening doors for first-time workers, schools and universities connecting young people with practical skills, and communities working together across race, class and nationality.
South Africa does not need another revolution against oppression. It needs a revolution of opportunity.
The youth of 1976 changed the country’s political future. The task now is to help today’s youth change their economic future. That would be a Youth Day worthy of their sacrifice.
Catch more of Zukile Majova’s viewpoints at Scrolla.Africa, a mobile-first news site covering breaking stories fast from communities across South Africa, where he is political editor, in English and isiZulu.
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Top image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.
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