Browsing by Author "Sebidie, Godfrey"

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    The challenges experienced by unemployed youth graduates in Botswana: An ecological systems perspective
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Sebidie, Godfrey; Strydom, Marianne; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Social Work.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Education has always been recognised as the means to achieve change, create new ideas, initiate new practices and move towards increasing prosperity. Thus, in many developing countries, tertiary education is increasingly important in facilitating a move into employment as part of an effort to increase prosperity. In Botswana, however, recent evidence suggests that graduates from the country’s tertiary institutions find it difficult to penetrate the labour market. Youth unemployment, especially graduate unemployment, has become a national concern in Botswana. It is normal for young graduates to expect to have a thriving career, yet, when these expectations are not met, unemployed graduates may face challenges in adapting to their situation. To deal with unemployment of youth graduates, the Botswana government established numerous youth intervention initiatives and programmes. However, past and current youth intervention programmes have been unable to mitigate unemployment, resulting in many youth graduates not being employed, some for as long as 10 years. Being unemployed has given rise to Botswana youth graduates having to face many challenges as their unemployed status has influenced their lives in various ways. It was established that, in Botswana, there was no general research or research from a social work perspective on the challenges that unemployed youth graduates were experiencing, which highlighted the possibility of a lack of appropriate services available to unemployed youth graduates. The ecological systems perspective was utilised to illustrate how various factors were interacting on the different systems of the ecological systems theory, as well as how these factors were affecting unemployed youth graduates. The ecological systems perspective was applied as it indicates how people encounter different environments throughout their lives that may influence their behaviour in different ways. A qualitative research approach together with exploratory and descriptive research designs were used to explore the challenges experienced by unemployed youth graduates in Botswana from an ecological systems perspective. Data was gathered through purposive and snowball sampling from the Unemployment Movement of Botswana and programme officers within the Ministry of Youth Empowerment Sport and Culture Development (MYESCD). Individual face-to-face, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were executed as data collection instruments. The research project took place in two phases. The first phase involved twenty unemployed youth graduates and the second phase entailed having two focus group discussions with eight programme officers from the MYESCD who had been working with unemployed youth graduates in the second phase. In total 28 participants took part in the study. Seven themes were then extracted from the participant interviews by way of thematic analysis. These themes were then further divided into subthemes and categories. It was found that unemployed youth graduates were experiencing challenges on the micro-, meso- and macro-levels of the ecological perspective. These challenges included psychological issues, for example, loss of self-esteem, sleeping disorders, depression and harbouring thoughts of suicide, physical challenges such as heart problems, headaches, and high blood pressure, as well as financial challenges such as not being able to provide for their loved ones, and being dependent on extended families. It was found that social work services were needed for unemployed youth graduates in order to promote their human dignity and rights. It is recommended that the Botswana government evaluate existing youth intervention government initiatives and programmes to determine the effectiveness thereof. It is also recommended that the government of Botswana should review the National Youth Policy of 2010 in order to adapt it to include and address current challenges experienced by unemployed youth graduates. Finally, it is recommended that needs assessment should be done to come up with programmes that are relevant and applicable to unemployed youth graduates of Botswana and that are not implemented one-size-fits all programmes.