01 Feb 2021

Government continues to demonstrate unending commitment to investing in the future of youth.

Delivering the budget speech on February 1, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Dr Thapelo Matsheka said government would thus inject over P2.6 billion into the Youth Empowerment Drive through investment in education and implementation of a number of national schemes targeting the youth.

Dr Matsheka said out the P2.6 billion, government would invest P2.26 billion in Tertiary Education Financing, over P135.7 million in the National Service Scheme, P104 million in the Youth Development Fund as well as over P98.8 million in the Internship Programme.

That, he said, was because high level of unemployment, especially among the youth, was one of the major developmental challenges the country was faced with.

Dr Matsheka indicated that unemployment had risen slightly as a result of lockdown periods and other disruptions experienced last year.

“Unemployment rate for the quarter ending December 2020 was at 24.5 per cent” he said, adding that according to the Quarterly Multi-Topic Household Survey, unemployment was slightly higher than the 23.2 per cent rate recorded in the first quarter of the year.

Meanwhile, Dr Matsheka indicated that government was  also developing a National Employment Policy in order to deal with such developmental challenge.

He said a draft policy had been undergoing intense interrogation within the ministry to assess its adequacy in promoting productive, gainful and decent employment for Batswana based on its five strategic focus areas.

Such focus areas, he said, included strengthening employment growth in the private sector, reforming education and training system, improving flow of information between job seekers and job openings, strengthening programmes such as Young Farmers Fund as well as implementation of a systematic monitoring and evaluation framework.

“The National Employment Policy will be finalised in the first half of 2021,” he said. ends