Why IMonti 4-H

South Africa has met and surpassed the millennium development goals for primary education but we are now faced with an even bigger challenge of school dropouts in grades 10 to 12. The Department of Basic Education’s report found that for every 100 children that begin school in grade 1 only 12 of them successfully complete grade 12 at a level where they are eligible to pursue higher education. A small percentage start dropping out in grade 9 (6.5%) but this number increases in the senior grades (11.5% in grade 10 & 11.8% in grade 11) resulting in only 40% of those enrolled in grade 1 successfully completing grade 12 exams. These young people then become part of the unskilled labour force and contribute towards the high unemployment statistics of the country.

Table 1: STATSSA Quarterly Labour Force Survey Unemployment Rates as at Quarter 4 of 2017

Unemployment	South Africa	Eastern Cape
Official[1]	26.7%	35.1%
Expanded[2]	36.3%	44.8%

This impacts black and coloured females the most as well as black and coloured males as indicated by the NEET[3] rates below. It’s important to note that these rates represent the whole of South Africa and that the Eastern Cape and BCMM rates might be different.

Table 2: STATSSA Quarterly Labour Force Survey NEET Rate as at Quarter 4 of 2017

NEET Rates[4]	Male	Female
Black	27.1%	34.7%
Coloured	31.3%	34.3%
Asian	21.3%	21.7%
White	8.2%	14.4%

Even though a number of push and pull factors have been identified internationally when it comes to drop out rates, locally there hasn’t been a lot of research done. However one of the factors that have been identified as playing a key role in dropouts and participation in risky behaviour is leisure. Engagement in healthy leisure activities can act as a protective factor because youth feel positive when engaged in meaningful and personally rewarding activities.

Through our programs we engage our members in healthy leisure activities of their choosing. They get the opportunity to build self-esteem through mastery and interaction with caring adults. They are given the opportunity and tools to restructure boredom into something positive, interesting and personally rewarding. This is an important developmental skill that helps to steer them away from risky behaviour such as drugs, alcohol and crime that can result from boredom. Through our mission of providing young people with fun educational experiences and positive youth development, we are able to engage learners that might be academically disengaged due to the logical and linguistic nature of school instruction. We provide them with experiential learning that engages the multiple learning styles and intelligences of humans. We ignite their passions through the projects they pick while arming them with leadership, technical, artisan and business skills they can use to be financially independent should they choose to dropout.

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[1] Official unemployment is individuals who are actively seeking employment and have taken active steps to look for work or to start some form of self-employment in the four weeks prior to the interview, also referred to as the “searching unemployed”

[2] The expanded or broad definition of unemployment includes discouraged job-seekers: those that want to work but are not actively searching for a job as they have lost hope, wanted to work but there are no jobs in the area or were unable to find work that required their skills and also referred to as the “non-searching unemployed”

[3] A NEET is a young person who is "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" and highlights a number of vulnerabilities among young people such as unemployment, early school leaving and labour market discouragement.

[4] NEET rates for youth aged 15–24 years by population group. A NEET is a young person who is "Not in Education, Employment, or Training"