South Africa has one of the worst youth-unemployment problems in the world. By some estimates, less than half the working-age population is employed, and the figures for those under 35 are even worse. The reasons for this crisis can be illustrated by an example, provided by our National Planning Commission, that involves a young girl called Thandi. She is one of a group of children who entered school together in 1999. Of that group, only 54 percent made it to the last year of formal schooling. Of those who took the exam to graduate, only 25 percent scored well enough to go on to higher education. And of those few, any who were young, black, and female, as Thandi is, and who had gone to a predominantly black school, had only a 4 percent chance of going to university. Even if Thandi were among that 4 percent, the odds of her having the money to go to university would be slim.
