In Africa, rising youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb

In Africa, rising youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb

One out of three young Africans is unemployed, and the youth population will double by 2050. How can Africa create jobs for the young and avoid unrest? A man holds a poster marking South Africa’s Youth Day holiday in Soweto, South Africa, 16 June 2020. (AP...

Marshaling official reports and authoritative data, correspondent Stella Mapenzauswa lifts the lid on one of Africa’s biggest challenges – youth unemployment. On a continent as large and diverse as Africa, it can be perilous to generalize across borders, but Mapenzauswa puts her finger on a problem that threatens numerous governments and societies there. Not satisfied with merely identifying the problem, the experienced journalist from southern Africa glimpses a solution in “hustling” – young Africans using whatever skills they have to earn money as entrepreneurs. Some of the best journalism identifies both problems and solutions.

Exercise: Ask your students to identify a critical problem facing their local community, assessing its economic and social impact, and then to list possible solutions and the attendant costs.

Teenage pregnancies soar in Africa as schools shut for COVID

Teenage pregnancies soar in Africa as schools shut for COVID

In Africa as elsewhere, many schools have shut classes due to COVID-19. With more girls at home, teenage pregnancies have spiked in some nations. A new-born baby in Chiradzulu, southern Malawi, 26 May 2021 (AP Photo/Thoko Chikondi) In much of the world, COVID-19 has...

COVID-19 has dominated headlines for the last year and a half. But the public health impact stretches beyond the virus. School closures did not just interrupt learning; they removed an essential form of protection for vulnerable youth. News Decoder correspondent Stella Mapenzauswa reports on the alarming rise in teenage pregnancies across the African continent since March 2020.

Exercise: Ask your students to enumerate some of the unanticipated consequences of the pandemic in their community. How are schools or governments addressing those challenges now?

Author: Stella Mapenzauswa