KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Premier Senzo Mchunu has committed the provincial government to moving with speed to ensure that youth development programmes are accessed by young people across all corners of the province. He was speaking after the first sitting of the provincial executive council in Pietermaritzburg.
Premier also announced that Youth Day event will take place in Mandeni Local Municipality on the 16th June 2014 followed by the Youth Parliament which is scheduled to take place in KwaMaphumulo Local Municipality on the 17th of June 2014.
“KwaZulu-Natal Executive Council met officially for the first time during this term of office and reflected on the progress this government is making with regard to Youth Development. The people of KwaZulu-Natal, especially the youth, are its greatest resource.”
“It is critical that the talent and potential of our youth is fully developed and harnessed, so that we can guarantee the continuous socio economic development of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa as a whole. In doing so we will ensure that we deal decisively with the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality.”
“Over the past five years the provincial government has spent more than R1,5 billion on bursaries awarded to needy students. The accumulative number of students that have benefited from the bursary programme over the past five years is more than 7 000.
“We are committed to ensuring that our programmes on skills and youth development are strengthened. There has been a strong focus on scarce skills such as engineering, science and technology, accounting, information technology, agriculture, health and social services.
“There were more than 1 954 students from poor families who benefitted from financial support provided by the provincial government at a cost of R54 million during 2013 academic year.”
“The number of graduates provincially is 7 653 and some are still studying. The overall number of progressing students provincially is 2 990. For the centralised departments, only 539 students are progressing in 2014. The budget to fund these students in 2014/2015 is R20 647 000.00.
“Off the progressing students, some belong to Health and education and they are getting financial support directly from the two departments. Over the past four years there are more than 4 000 interns who have worked for various provincial government departments costing government more than R100 million.”
“We have provided Social Work Scholarship to more than 1 371 unemployed youth and experiential training for more than 75 unemployed graduates. Through the Premier’s Priority Projects (working with the Department of Education) students with disabilities have been recruited and given bursaries and trained. Some of these students with disabilities registered for BPaed Degree at Unizulu.”
“Our learnership programme has already recruited more than 260 learners with disabilities and these have been distributed to Umkhanyakude, Inkandla, Umfolozi, Vulamehlo and Jozini municipalities. The importance of youth acquiring experience in the various areas of their training cannot be overemphasised.”
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