It was there, under the leadership of the then CEO Ignatius Sehoole (currently the CEO of KPMG), that I was given the opportunity to implement programmes that aimed at transforming SAICA’s membership to be more reflective of South Africa’s demographics. It was a tall order, but a doable one if purposely driven. And thus, in 2002, SAICA’s education upliftment initiative, Thuthuka was founded. Through Thuthuka, SAICA focuses on building the pipeline of future Chartered Accountants [CAs(SA)] starting from Grade 10 all the way through to qualification. With over 10 000 disadvantaged African and Coloured learners qualifying as Chartered Accountants through this initiative, it is fair to say that SAICA has been successful in its endeavours. 

When I retired from SAICA at the end of 2021, I knew that I wanted to devote my time and energy to solving youth unemployment, community by community. And so, I set up Marketplace Academy, an NPC run in partnership with World of Life Church and chaired by the esteemed educationist and leader Professor Wiseman Lumkile Nkuhlu, CA(SA). This NPC seeks to  transform communities into economic hubs by helping those in the community, particularly the youth, acquire the requisite skills the community needs in order for these individuals to become employable, innovative and active socially responsible citizens.

As our first focus, our Board chose Reiger Park, Ekurhuleni – a distinctly poor and troubled community plagued with gangs and drug abuse. In order to discover exactly what this community needed, we spent the last year meeting with the Reiger Park Community Forum and the Communities’ Council Committee representatives as well as with the relevant provincial Department of Education (DBE) senior officials in order to understand the community landscape.

This is what we discovered:

The community consists of four primary schools and two high schools. There are no resource centres, let alone computers and internet connectivity, at these institutions and very few learners take mathematics as a subject. After meeting with many of the unemployed youth in the community, I soon realised that many of these youngsters are both illiterate and innumerate. 

It is a massive problem. 

You see, the government is always saying that in order to revive community economies, we need more entrepreneurs. We urge the youth to start small businesses. But they will never be successful if they do not have proper numeracy and literacy skills!

In addition to this, the youth in the community are not given any direction. During our August career awareness day, we discovered that most of the area’s learners had not applied to any universities or colleges to further their studies. They did not even know what they wanted to do.  

What a heart-breaking situation. And sadly, it is also one not specific only to this community. 

Without a proper education, our youth will continue to join the queue of South Africa’s unemployed masses.  

When the government developed the National Development Plan 2030 (NDP), it spent a lot of time and effort figuring out where our country needed to go. While 2030 may not be a long way off, the targets set in the NDP are. Take the output trends in mathematics vis-à-vis the NDP’s targets, for example, and you will notice that there is much to be desired. 

In 2021, the total number of matrics enrolled for mathematics stood at 265 951 learners versus maths literacy at 453 327 learners. This means that only 36.9% of our matrics pursue mathematics at school. With a 40% overall pass rate, only 49.1 % of matrics who take maths actually pass the subject. Since passing requires learners to achieve a grade of only 30% we, as citizens of South Africa, should be very concerned. Even more worrying is the fact that the number of learners receiving over 80% in this subject was a mere 7 725 (3%). 

Sadly, this is a trend that gets worse every year. 

How then can we speak of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how our country can participate if we cannot even get the basics right? 

The truth is we cannot. We are not even in the starting stalls.  

Earlier this month, UK Prime Minister, Rishni Sunak indicated that all learners in the UK will have to take mathematics until they are 18 years old. In his first address for the year, Sunak said the UK must “reimagine [its] approach to numeracy.” He went on to add that “in a world where data is everywhere and statistics underpin every job, letting [its] children out into that world without those skills is letting [its] children down.’

Interestingly, a similar initiative, driven by civil society, has also started in Italy. 

What then, is South Africa doing?

In general, our society chooses to ignore the importance of improving mathematics enrolments and its pass rates at school and punt mediocrity instead. We are not only doing this at the expense of our youth, but our country’s future as well. 

With over 40 years in the education space, I have learnt the following lessons:

1. Mathematics is the most effective way to build mental discipline and encourage logical reasoning and mental rigour. In addition, mathematical knowledge plays an important role in understanding the contents of other school subjects including science, social science and even music and art.
2. Galileo famously said: “Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.” This quote expresses just how fundamental mathematics is to our existence. The universe cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. This means it is humanly impossible to comprehend the world around us without a keen understanding of mathematics.
3. Mathematics is a critical subject. It opens up numerous employment opportunities and career avenues for young people. Even artisan programmes require mathematics. Many articles have been written on this, yet as a country we choose to ignore this fact and celebrate mediocrity – accepting a ludicrously low matric pass rate. As citizens who want a better future for our youth, we need to stand up and speak truth to power. Dudu Mkhize, mathematician and author of The Untold Truth: Behind the consistent poor maths performance in schools, believes the problem is not the learner but the fact that educators themselves are not purposefully prepared to teach mathematics themselves. She indicates that only 10% of matrics who write mathematics in their final examination can, in fact, gain access to professions, including artisan programmes.
4. We need to stop talking and start creating centres of excellence at our schools for our young people. We need to cultivate our schools as centres of learning and equip them properly.
5. You cannot build a pipeline for any profession or trade if you only focus your efforts on Grade 10, 11 and 12. This is too little, too late. Indeed SA’s previous Auditor-General and the former CEO of SAICA, Terence Nombembe, now a Marketplace Academy Board member, has alluded to the need to equip professionals “from cradle to grave” in many of his dialogues within SAICA. We must all work together starting at primary school level if we are to truly change the outcome of learners leaving high school.
6. Grade 7 educators need to have discussions with Grade 8 educators in order to help them understand what they are handing over. Many learners are promotion learners (individuals who are only “put through” to high school because they have to be) and high schools need to be aware of this in order to properly upskill these learners for success.
7. Mathematic workbooks spanning from Grade 4 to Grade 12 must be developed. These must not only be at the requisite international standard, but they must be peer reviewed for appropriateness and shared with all primary and high schools around the country to ensure equal and equitable teaching of this subject.
8. Working together with organisations like the South Africa Maths Foundation (SAMF), we need to provide educators with approved mathematics programmes to increase knowledge and their ability to teach this critical subject.
9. Working with the SAMF, we need to create a specialist teacher registry of all mathematics teachers who meet the necessary education criteria.
10. We need to equip the schools we support with the necessary resources, computers and internet are a bare minimum, to equip them for success. In Reiger Park, (which, I might add, is not in a rural area) these resources are non-existent.
11. We need to provide learners and parents with proper career awareness and guidance at a Grade 9 level to help learners make the right subject choices.
12. Schools need to work far closer with universities and TVET Colleges to ensure that they are providing learners with the required skills they need to enter higher education pathways. In Ekurhuleni where Marketplace Academy focuses, we must work together with the two colleges in the area to help build a pipeline for their vocational and occupation programmes to ensure the youth can be gainfully employed in leading industries within this community.
13. We need to understand businesses’ requirements and work with local businesses to ensure these skills are delivered through TVET College occupation programmes.
14. We also need to ensure that these TVET programmes are funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
15. We need to start listening, talking and working together. Everyone subscribes to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet in South Africa we would rather work alone than collaborate to come up with a blueprint that we can replicate in every community in the country.
16. We need to work with provincial Departments of Education to create schools of specialisation, where learners not only get an academic matric but leave with sector-specific skills aimed at addressing the skills shortages in the South African economy.

The late Nelson Mandela believed that the most powerful weapon we have against poverty is education. 

As Marketplace Academy, we are committed to working with all willing entities (be they companies, schools, TVET colleges, SETAs and more) to drive solutions for the above 16 lessons in order to create sustainable solutions for our country’s youth unemployment crisis.

Gratefully, we already have the commitment of the accountancy firms as well as the auditing profession in this regard. But as we start a new academic year, I urge the public of South Africa to become part of the willing and work together to start crafting a sustainable solution for our youth, community by community. DM

Author: Chantyl Mulder, Executive Director: Marketplace Academy NPC

About Marketplace Academy:

Marketplace Academy is a registered non-profit organization (NPO) founded by the Word and Life (WNL) Network NPC to provide solutions to resolve youth unemployment in the communities it serves in order to create a better life for young people from such communities. 

Currently focusing its efforts on the community of Reiger Park, Ekurhuleni, Marketplace Academy aims to bring individuals who have skills or to provide skills to the youth, to connect with employers by sourcing funding from funders as well as to identify suitable service providers.