Let them lead... teaching youth to their own their future

Photo Cred: On File | Supplied

All discussions on leadership return to a narrow path and often come to a dead end with none conclusive enough to answer whether leaders are born or made.

Forty years ago when the youth took to the streets of Soweto and dodged the apartheid government’s police and policy, they simply proved that everyone can inspire others even in the direst situations.

The struggle continues even today with the underlying sentiment that sparked the Soweto uprising maintaining a haunting presence. Less equality of opportunity against the backdrop of under-resourced and overburdened public schools has led to a class divide.

Of the almost 600,000 odd matriculants in South African schools, one student too many will be leaving the system unqualified to compete for jobs.

The fact that only 45% of children who start Grade 1 go on to complete matric, with 50% dropping out after Grade 11, will only worsen the country’s already fragile social and economic imbalance.

Of these, a few will have the opportunity for upward mobility, but the rest will be a growing concern and add to generation jobless. If this trend must be reversed, schools must heed to the clarion call and work towards unlocking the potential of the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs and change agents.

According to the World Bank, the current youth unemployment figure sits at 52%, which translates into a large swath of youth who are not empowered to elevate their own social and economic conditions.

Whilst leadership is no panacea to this ill, it has a real chance of introducing a new revolution worthy of the scale of the problem.

Every student is a leader-elect, and schools have the responsibility to establish a climate to nurture this trait and their growth as empowered citizens. Providing young people with leadership opportunities not only helps them be more articulate about their challenges but also be fully aware of the consequences of their actions.

But before that can happen, students must have the opportunity to lead themselves, lead change in their own lives and be authentic role models.

The kind of leadership we usually encounter is top down and is best met with resistance as far as the youth are concerned.

The youth must be encouraged to develop an inside out approach to leadership and learning, one that is more about authenticity than authority. All youth, given the opportunity to execute their decisions can be change agents and drive transformative and positive social impact.

Most school systems have however become obsessed with teaching without really cultivating an atmosphere of learning. Couple this with parental neglect and we are staring at a spectacular failure at developing talented young people with the ability to build an extraordinary society.

Here, purposeful leadership from the youth can play a critical role in tackling and managing disadvantages that other students often bring to the classrooms.

This is a scenario only too common in many of the under serviced schools in the country.

What we can tell from experience is that such schools return better outcomes even in the most challenging of environments with their youth fully engaged and invested in learning after some form of leadership program.

There is no external agency to drive the change and we need to stop looking for the best individuals to train.

We need to commit to an institutional model that develops youth as transformational leaders over time.

We need to engage in an inter-generational way, seen to be exercising leadership to actually encourage the youth to practice leadership.

It is definitely not a quick fix, but it will teach the youth to own their future.

Rob Taylor is Founding Chairman of Columba Leadership South Africa and The David Rattray Foundation and prior to that was an Executive Director of Dimension Data Plc

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