Youth Day: Education, Inequality, and AI: The New Frontlines of Youth Struggle

ON June 16, 1976, thousands of young black school children courageously stared down the barrel of a gun to defy an oppressive system that sought to dictate their education and future.

The Soweto Uprising, as it is now known, was a seminal moment in our nation’s history. The apartheid government’s attempt to impose Afrikaans as the primary language of instruction was not just a linguistic shift; it was a deliberate act of subjugation, reinforcing Hendrik Verwoerd’s vision of racial segregation and inferior education for black children.

The youth of 1976 understood that education was a battleground, and they bravely confronted the brutal system armed with nothing else, but stones. That is how determined they were not to be silenced.

Verwoerd carries the title of “Architect of Apartheid” because of the significant contribution he made to the creation of an unequal state-owned and controlled educational system through the implementation of the Bantu Education Act of 1953.

This Act was designed to ensure that the black majority never achieves full equality with white people by deliberately creating an inferior educational system to render them permanent servants of the white minority. For generations, the apartheid state used education as a propaganda weapon against Black people to reinforce white supremacy.

The Bantu Education Act served several purposes. It ensured that Black schools received significantly fewer resources and less funding than white schools. In 1975, the government spent R644 per white student and only R42 per black student. Black teachers were poorly qualified compared to their white counterparts and had to teach large numbers of learners at a time, in dilapidated under resourced schools.

The pit latrines that exist in our educational system today are the remnants of apartheid education. The act also ensured that the educational curriculum was designed in such a way that black learners would only qualify to work as manual labour, thus making access to higher or tertiary education almost impossible.

This is why the actions taken by the students that day are permanently imprinted in the annals of our history. They sacrificed their lives because, despite the terrible odds they were facing, they hoped for a better future. Their courage ignited a movement that shook the foundations of apartheid, forcing the world to confront the brutality of the regime.

But nearly five decades later, the question remains: has the struggle for dignity, equality, and freedom been won?

Today’s youth face challenges that, while different in form, are deeply connected to the injustices of the past. During Apartheid, race was the barrier to achieving a decent life; now, the barrier is class.

South Africa’s youth unemployment rate stands at a staggering 46.1%. For the first quarter of 2025, close to five million young people between the ages of 14 and 24 years old, are not in employment, education or training. The promise that education would be the key to economic opportunity has failed many young people, particularly Black graduates who find themselves locked out of meaningful employment.

Poverty remains entrenched, with 55% of South Africans living below the upper-bound poverty line. The post-apartheid economic system, shaped by decades of neo-liberal economic policies, has prioritised profits for a tiny elite over the well-being of the majority of people, leaving millions in precarious conditions. The wealth gap continues to widen, reinforcing the structural inequalities that apartheid set in motion.

The generation of 1976 fought and died for equality, and yet South Africa today is the most unequal society in the world. The failure of post-apartheid neoliberalism proves that economic justice cannot be achieved through policies designed to maintain corporate wealth at the expense of the majority.

This current age that we are in is characterised by rapid technological advancement, bringing with it Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is reshaping our industries. While progress should be welcomed because it can significantly improve the lives of the majority of people, the owners and creators of AI are not motivated by a desire to improve society for the benefit of all.

They are eagerly unleashing this technology for the benefit of tech billionaires and obscenely wealthy entrepreneurs whose aim is maximum profit-making, in the shortest time possible.

The early adopters of this technology are the already privileged, and this will lead to a digital divide that threatens to deepen economic exclusion. AI-driven automation is projected to displace millions of jobs globally, and South Africa is not immune. Without proactive state-driven policies, the rapid deployment of AI will disproportionately harm those who are already marginalised, widening the gap between the technologically empowered and the economically disenfranchised.

While one can acknowledge that the Department of Communications has developed a national AI strategy, it does not go far enough to mitigate against these risks, which may result in the country lagging behind in the global digital economy. The lack of access to AI-driven opportunities will further entrench inequality, making it imperative for policymakers to ensure that technological advancements serve all citizens, not just a privileged few.

What the owners of AI did not consider was the possibility that displacement would mean that millions of workers, including professionals, would be unemployed. Therefore, how will these people support and sustain themselves and their families if they are not working? They also did not consider the fact that if these people have no income, who will consume their products? These are important questions which require creative solutions. If we fail to find practical mechanisms to prevent this looming catastrophe, then the current triple threat of poverty, unemployment and inequality can only worsen.

To truly reclaim the future, South Africa’s youth must demand an economy that includes and uplifts them. This requires urgent educational reform to align primary and tertiary curricula with real market demands, ensuring graduates possess employable skills, while expanding vocational training and apprenticeships through government-private sector collaboration.

Beyond traditional job creation, the state must invest in community-based enterprises and worker-owned cooperatives. Proven models like Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which pioneered microfinance to empower rural entrepreneurs, and Mondragon in Spain, a cooperative employing nearly 100 000 workers through democratic business structures, have demonstrated that social entrepreneurship can play a progressive role in improving the lives of the people.

At the same time, AI regulation and digital equity must be prioritised to safeguard jobs against automation-driven exclusion. This means upskilling workers, launching free digital literacy programs nationwide, and establishing a regulatory body to monitor AI ethics, ensuring technology serves the majority rather than widening existing inequalities. Only through bold policy shifts and youth-led activism can South Africa secure an inclusive economy that breaks the cycle of poverty and systemic exclusion.

The most important change that we can make in our society is to fight for our sovereign right to govern in a way that results in meaningful change for the majority of people. It is unfortunate that since the ANC was elected into government in 1994, it surrendered its power to the dictates of neo-liberalism and the demands of international financial institutions. These bodies insisted on the implementation of austerity and privatisation, over radical people-centred policies that can truly uplift the majority of the population.

Policies like Employment Equity, Affirmative Action and even BBBEE were a positive intervention, but much more is required to ensure meaningful transformation to reverse the terrible impact of Apartheid. Nationalisation policies directed at our mineral endowment would have empowered the state to fund policies to sustain genuine transformation and improve the lives of the masses.

June 16 is not just a day of remembrance; it is a call to action. The youth of 1976 fought for a future that some of them never got to see, but today’s youth must fight for a future that is still within reach.

The battle against inequality, unemployment, and digital exclusion is daunting, but history has shown that when young people organise, change can be achieved. The question is not whether change is possible; it is whether we are willing to fight for it.

* Phakamile Hlubi-Majola is a former journalist and the Numsa national spokesperson. She writes in her personal capacity.

** ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.