The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) on Monday reiterated its request for government to work with industry bodies to enable job creation, which it said would also reduce criminal activities.
In a statement responding to the killing of Geoff Sylvester last month while on the site of a water and sanitation infrastructure project in KwaMashu, in KwaZulu-Natal, Saice stated that one of the reasons for South Africa’s significant crime rate could be that of all learners entering grade 1 between 30% and 40%, fell out of the system before reaching grade 8.
“These are the young people wandering the streets aimlessly, about whom the communities are concerned,” Saice said.
The institution noted that South Africa could not afford to ignore this group of people.
“Government programmes are aimed at those learners who have a matric or even grade 10, but this aimless group is the forgotten generation. It is their time to be assisted and it needs to be done now,” Saice stressed.
The organisation pointed out that the civil engineering and construction industries had a vast number of career options, and the ability to create job opportunities for unskilled people.
“However, the political will has to be there to roll out projects for the industry to play its role and industry must be engaged at the outset of government’s planning initiatives,” Saice stated, reiterating that it was willing and able to assist government.