Young whites 'lose out twice'
08/06/2006 08:06 AM
By: Sue Segar

Cape Town - Young white South Africans are being deprived of equal opportunities twice thanks to affirmative action - once when applying to tertiary institutions, and again when they enter the job market.

This was the view put forward by an Afrikaner youth organisation, the Tuks Afrikaanse Studente (TAS), in its submission to parliament's portfolio committee on labour during public hearings on the issue of youth unemployment in South Africa.

TAS spokesperson Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg told the committee that, apart from the "moral and emotional" objections to affirmative action, the policy also has serious cost implications for the country.

He said recognising that expenditure on education is a capital investment by the state, the money should, after a number of years, start paying dividends by way of added value to the economy and to the broader society.

De facto exile

However, the potential loss of capital investment in education, if government persists in its current approach of representivity as the determining factor for the measurement of affirmative action programmes, will amount to about R85.3bn over a ten year period.

"This means a total waste of resources. We should also think of the opportunity cost that this policy causes," he said.

"Is it wise to invest so much money in the youth, only to implement a policy that sends many of them into de facto exile in Europe and other parts of the world?"

Commenting on the government's policy to allocate resources to ensure quality education for those who did not have it before, Jansen van Rensburg said that statistics show that the number of black students who entered into tertiary institutions has grown by more than 100%, while the number of white students has decreased by 20% in recent years.

"The decrease in the number of white youths at tertiary level could be attributed to large-scale emigration, changing demographics, or the quota system in respect of admission to specialised courses."

Youth had nothing to do with previous regime

Jansen van Rensburg used a survey conducted by the University of Stellenbosch to illustrate the public view on affirmative action. The survey found that the vast majority of respondents agreed that the youth should be exempt from affirmative action based on race.

"An important aspect is how the community affected by a governmental policy perceives a policy. We (the youth of SA) had nothing to do with the previous regime and now we are the ones bearing the brunt of a policy that is in fact not serving the academic aim but is used to oppress us.

"How will those youths who cannot afford to emigrate deal with this situation?"

Jansen van Rensburg pointed out that youth unemployment is currently a worldwide crisis and that, in South Africa, 76% of the jobless are youths.

He said that for every one professional leaving the country in the large-scale exodus of highly skilled South Africans to other parts of the globe, at least eight job opportunities are lost.

Want to contribute

Referring to the United Nations' view that affirmative action is "temporary" by nature, he said that government policy should focus on creating equal opportunities within reasonable time, from which all youth can compete without preferential governmental policy, rather than attempting to force potentially unsustainable outcomes.

"As South Africans, we see ourselves as part of the democratic dispensation and not isolated from the harsh realities that the country faces. We want to make a contribution. Government should allow us to do so," Jansen van Rensburg said.

In another submission, the Black Sash said that, since 1994, close to a million matriculants have not entered the job market "simply because jobs have not been available".

The organisation called for a reconstruction of government programmes, such a the Youth Commission, the National Youth Development Policy Framework and the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, with a view to developing fresh mandates to specifically address the problem of youth unemployment.