Download PDFAs schools are closing (due to the third wave and the winter holidays being brought forward), employment for the youth brigades is coming to an end once again. Again the brigades are left stranded as to what is going to happen next. Some of the brigades who have been stationed in schools have been told that 29 June 2021 marks the last day of their employment at the schools.
Speaking to some brigades in the Soweto area, they said that the Department of Basic Education has stated that they are planning to have another job portal for posts opened again, just like the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, as a way of getting more people to apply. The Department said this is also a chance for the youth that is unemployed to also get a chance to employment.
“Even though some of us re-applied again, we can’t know for certain whether we are going to get accepted again into the schools we are currently in, or if our applications will be unsuccessful, like the people who got rejected for the programme”, said Lungile Macondo, who is now a former school brigadier.
It is not clear to the youth brigades where they now stand with the schools. Even if they get the chance of being brigades again, they wonder if they will get sent to other schools as a form of a rotation of some sort.
Some of the brigades feel that they will be going back to being unemployed, while others still have hope that their contracts will get renewed again.
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