Remarks by Honourable Ms Sindisiwe Chikunga, MP, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities on the occasion of the media launch of the Golden Jubilee commemoration of the 1976 Youth Uprising
Theme: Reset@50 – The future calls
“Our National Commitment to the Future, for Freedom Lives in Every Generation.”
Venue: Soweto, Gauteng Province
Programme: Launch of the Year-Long Golden Jubilee Commemoration Programme
Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities
Republic of South Africa
Salutations
- Programme Director and members of the media;
- Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Honourable Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, acknowledged in absentia;
- Premier of Gauteng Province, Honourable Panyaza Lesufi;
- Executive Chairperson of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), Dr Sunshine Myende;
- Deputy Executive Chairperson, Board Members and Chief Executive Officer of the NYDA;
- Acting Director-General of the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD) and senior officials present;
- Representatives of national, provincial and local government;
- Representatives of the June 16 1976 Foundation, Charlotte Mannya-Maxeke Institute, and other heritage, memory and civil society organisations;
- Representatives of the United Nations, diplomatic corps and international organisations;
- Representatives of the private sector, development finance institutions, telecommunications, media and technology sectors;
- Leaders of youth formations and political youth structures;
- Traditional leadership and faith-based leaders present;
- Distinguished guests;
- And most importantly, the young people of South Africa;
Good morning.
1. Opening: historical context
Programme Director,
Ladies and gentlemen, it is easy on a day like this to observe protocol, proceed directly into the programme, and move quickly into the technical details of what is being launched.
But before we do so, I ask for your indulgence for a few moments.
We cannot launch the Golden Jubilee Commemoration of the 1976 Youth Uprising without first reflecting on the significance of the moment that brings us here.
Today, we are not merely launching a programme. We are opening a national year of memory, reflection and action.
Before we speak about what we will do, and before we speak about the future, let us return briefly to the past that made this future possible.
Because as we speak of Reset@50, part of that reset must be a reset of consciousness through memory.
We must retell these stories, preserve them, and pass them on.
Because dare we forget.
And so, we must remember that the morning of 16 June 1976 did not begin on 16 June.
It had been building for decades.
In 1953, the apartheid government introduced the Bantu Education Act, laying the foundation for an education system designed to separate, control and limit Black children.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, a spirit was rising among Black students and young people. The Black Consciousness Movement was teaching a generation to reject inferiority, to recover dignity, and to understand that apartheid did not only control land, labour and laws — it also tried to control the mind.
In 1969, the South African Students’ Organisation, SASO, was launched at Turfloop, the then University of the North. Turfloop became one of the important centres of Black student politics, connecting the struggles of township schools, rural campuses and national resistance.
In 1972, Onkgopotse Tiro delivered the Turfloop Testimony, condemning Bantu Education and the control of Black education by apartheid authorities. He was expelled. Later, he taught history at Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto, where he encouraged learners to question Bantu Education. Among the generation influenced by this political consciousness was Tsietsi Mashinini.
Then, in 1974, the apartheid state sharpened the crisis. It issued instructions that Afrikaans and English must be used on a 50/50 basis as languages of instruction in Black secondary schools. Subjects such as mathematics, arithmetic and social studies were to be taught in Afrikaans.
This was not a neutral language policy. It was the apartheid state saying to Black children: even your learning will happen on our terms.
By May 1976, the matter had moved from memoranda and warnings into student action.
And this is why I want us, sitting here on this cold morning in May 2026, to imagine May 1976.
In just a few days from today’s date, on 17 May 1976, students at Orlando West Junior Secondary School would go on strike. Two days later, a committee of students would present a memorandum to their principal. Students from other schools would join the strike. By 24 May, students from Pimville Higher Primary and Khulangolwazi Higher Primary would also join.
So in May 1976, young people were not merely thinking about resistance.
They were already resisting.
On cold mornings like this one, perhaps even colder, children were walking to school carrying more than books. They were carrying fear, frustration, anger and a growing conviction that something had to be done.
They were meeting secretly before school and after school. They were mobilising in classrooms, in schoolyards and between schools.
But their parents were afraid — and rightly so. Their teachers were afraid — and rightly so.
But what was to be done, when the liberation movements were banned. Leaders had been jailed, exiled, restricted or killed. But fear was present because communities knew the violence of the apartheid state.
But even in that climate of fear, and even in the cold of that season, the blood of young people was boiling with conviction.
They understood that enforcement of Afrikaans was not merely a language question. It was a question of dignity, power and livelihood.
By 13 June 1976, student leaders had formed an Action Committee, later known as the Soweto Students’ Representative Council. Their plan was not to start a violent uprising. Their plan was to hold a peaceful protest against the compulsory use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction.
On the morning of 16 June 1976, learners from schools including Naledi High School and Morris Isaacson High School moved in organised columns, collecting other students along the way, with the intention of proceeding to Orlando Stadium for a peaceful rally.
At around 09:00, Tsietsi Mashinini appealed to the students to remain calm. The message was clear: they were not there to fight. They were there to make a political statement.
But apartheid responded to children with violence. And when that violence came, the burden of that day was not carried by the students alone.
The recently aired documentary on Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela reminds us that the story of 1976 is also the story of mothers, nurses and women who ran towards the pain of the nation.
It reminds us that as children were wounded and killed, women like Mama Winnie and many others used whatever they had — their cars, their homes, their hands, their courage — to help carry children to safe places like Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, where hundreds of children’s lifeless bodies piled up overnight.
This image, must reminds us that the children of Soweto were not statistics. They were sons and daughters. They were learners. They were the country’s future.
And so, as we gather here today, we remember not only the thousands of youth who marched, we remember the hundreds of mothers who mourned.
So, this Golden Jubilee matters. Because June 1976 was not only a tragic period in our history. It was a moment of political clarity. It showed South Africa and the world that young people are not spectators in history. They are makers of history and leaders of the future.
Colleagues, because this is a media launch, allow me to honour the journalists, photographers, editors and media teams who helped the world see what apartheid wanted to hide.
We remember Sam Nzima, whose photograph of Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo, with Antoinette Sithole running beside them, became one of the defining images of apartheid brutality.
We remember Sophie Tema, who reported on the students’ march from the early hours of that morning, and Thomas Khoza, whose role in moving material from the scene to the newsroom helped carry the story beyond Soweto.
We also remember legendary photographer Peter Magubane, whose courageous documentation of apartheid violence, including the Soweto Uprising and its aftermath, helped preserve the visual memory of South Africa’s struggle for freedom. Their work reminds us that media does not only report history but at critical moments also helps a nation and the world confront the difficult truth.
Section 2: Reset@50 – the future calls
So, distinguished guests, as young people were organising in May 1976 towards a day of action, in May 2026, we gather to organise towards a year of national action under the theme ‘Reset@50 – The Future Calls’.
This is not just a campaign. It is a call to action:
To, Remember Truthfully: not through selective memory, but the full truth of pain, courage, betrayal, resilience and sacrifice.
To, Engage the Present: by recognising the impact of the 1976 Youth Uprising on the trajectory of our country, and what it demands of us today.
To, Shift the Narrative: from seeing young people as a problem, to recognising young people as solutions and co-creators of today and the future.
To, Empower this Generation: by transferring leadership, not only stories, and building intergenerational continuity.
And to, Transform the Future: by ensuring that our programmes advance economic inclusion for all young people, especially young women and young persons with disabilities.
Therefore, this theme recognises that much has been achieved since democracy, but it also requires us to consolidate those gains, confront what remains unresolved, and deliver measurable opportunities with and for young people.
2.1. What democracy has built for young people
So, the question is what democracy has done for young people.
In 1994, young people entered a democracy that promised political freedom, equal citizenship and a new social contract.
In 1996, that promise was given constitutional force. Our Constitution, which this year turns 30, affirmed the rights to dignity, equality and freedom.
Since then, government has expanded access to education, student funding, youth development institutions, public participation platforms, skills development and employment pathways.
Through generations of student activism and progressive deliberate policy choices of the democratic state, enrolment in the public university sector grew from 495 000 (495,356) students in 1994 to more than 1 million (1,077,768) students in 2022. By 2025, public universities were projected to enrol over 1.15 million students, while TVET colleges were projected to enrol over 587,000 students.
The struggles of student movements over many years, culminating in the Fees Must Fall protests of 2015, 2016 and 2017, pushed the country to confront the unfinished question of free decolonised higher education. Through NSFAS, millions of young people from poor and working-class households have accessed university and TVET opportunities. Between 2019 and 2023, DHET reported that NSFAS disbursed R192 billion, benefiting almost 3.9 million students in universities and TVET colleges.
We have also built a legislative and institutional framework for youth development. Through the National Youth Development Agency Act of 2008, and its subsequent 2024 amendment, government has institutionalised youth development and created a dedicated agency to coordinate and support young people across the country.
And in this financial year, government is placing R1.8 billion behind the NYDA to expand youth development, entrepreneurship, employment pathways, skills development and paid service opportunities. This includes support for youth-owned enterprises, business development support, job placement, and work towards a National Youth Fund Strategy.
The Presidential Youth Employment Intervention has created a national platform for connecting young people to opportunities. By 2025, the National Pathway Management Network had over 4.78 million young people registered, with more than 1.67 million earning opportunities secured to date.
In the basic education sector, the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative created opportunities for more than 320,000 young people in approximately 23,000 public schools in its first phase alone.
These gains matter.
They show that democracy has created institutions, opened doors, and placed resources behind youth development.
But the next phase cannot be measured only by access.
It must be measured by completion, transition, absorption, ownership and dignity.
That is where the reset begins.
2.2 Why the reset is necessary and what must change
Ladies and gentlemen,
So why is the RESET necessary and what must change?
Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey issued yesterday stated the youth unemployment increased to 32,7%.
Stats SA also records that more than four in ten young people aged 15 to 34 were not in employment, education or training, with the NEET rate for this age group reaching 45.6% in the first quarter of 2026.
These figures require us to focus on the pressure points in the youth development pipeline.
It is not enough for young people to enter education if they do not complete, and if completion does not lead to work, enterprise or further training.
It is not enough to train young people if those skills are not linked to growing sectors, real employers and productive opportunities.
It is not enough to support young people with ideas, businesses and digital access if they remain outside finance, procurement, markets, value chains and the digital economy.
That is why this reset is also a call to higher education institutions, SETAs, industry and the private sector to work together more deliberately.
Universities and TVET colleges must work with industry in the co-creation of curricula, workplace exposure and skills planning, so that young people are not trained for an economy that cannot absorb them.
To the private sector and strategic institutions represented here today and elsewhere: your presence must translate into concrete commitments — jobs and work experience, support for youth-owned enterprises, and investment in future skills.
That is the practical meaning of Reset@50: a youth development pipeline that moves young people from access to completion, from qualifications to pathways, and from training to absorption, ownership and dignity.
It must be a social reset: rebuilding the social fabric around young people through social cohesion, patriotism, national identity and shared responsibility. This means confronting GBVF, substance abuse, harmful masculinities, mental health challenges, racism, sexism, ableism and social fragmentation.
It must be a political reset: rebuilding how the state listens, implements and accounts to young people and society at large.
It must be an economic reset: moving young people from participation to ownership, and from access to real pathways. It must prepare young people for an economy already shaped by artificial intelligence, data, cybersecurity, digital platforms, e-commerce, green technologies, advanced manufacturing and new forms of work. We cannot allow the digital economy to become a new geography of exclusion.
Section 3: the future that calls
So, colleagues…
As we mark Reset@50 – The Future Calls, the Chief Executive Officer of the NYDA will outline the year-long roadmap in greater detail.
At a political level, our position is clear: this Golden Jubilee is not a one-day event. It is a year-long national programme of action.
It must turn the memory of 1976 into measurable opportunities for the youth of 2026, especially through economic inclusion, future skills, disability inclusion and economic freedom.
The test of this Jubilee will not be the number of events we host. It will be the number of doors we open.
Colleagues, we acknowledge every organisation, institution, creative industries, media house and partners already carrying the memory of June 16 through commemorations, dialogues, exhibitions, documentaries, lectures, community programmes and commitments to opportunities.
We welcome creative works such as Studying Under the Barrel of a Gun, directed by Tebogo Malope and produced by Cornet Thabiso Mamabolo, which helps recover the story of Turfloop, student resistance, military occupation and the wider history of youth activism beyond Soweto.
These efforts remind us that the memory of 1976 does not belong to government alone. It belongs to the people.
Government’s role is to coordinate, support, amplify and ensure that memory becomes action.
We therefore encourage more South Africans to participate in this Golden Jubilee.
Let schools and universities create spaces for intergenerational dialogue. Let families tell their stories and young people use their phones, podcasts, community radio, TikTok and other digital platforms to record the voices of their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Let media houses seek out the voices we have not heard enough.
But as we preserve memory, we must also challenge young people to imagine the future.
The youth of today must help us answer a bold question: what must South Africa look like as a digitised nation by 2076?
As we mark 50 years since 1976, we must ask young people to help shape the next 50 years — towards a National Youth Development Plan 2076 that speaks to digital inclusion, future industries, innovation, ethical and patriotic leadership, economic ownership and a society where no young person is left behind.
Distinguished guests,
As part of this national commemoration, we look forward to gathering here in Soweto on 16 June 2026, where the nation, led by His Excellency, President Cyril Ramaphosa, will honour the generation of 1976.
Let this Golden Jubilee be remembered not only for what we said about 1976, but for what we built for 2026 to 2076.
Let every sphere of government, every institution, every private sector partner, every academia, every young person and every community ask: what will we contribute to the next 50 years of youth development?
Long live the class of 1976.
I thank you, and God bless you all.
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