By Helga Jansen-Daugbjerg
Helga is a Doctoral candidate at the University of Cape Town’s School of Education. Her research focuses on Technical and Vocational Education and Training, exploring how education and labour identities are shaped through vocational learning.
With over 20 years of experience in trade union education and social justice, she has worked as an education officer in the labour movement and as a programme manager in youth, gender, and community media organisations.
Helga says: “Employment is the holy grail of our new democracy. Yet, as we commemorate Youth Day, June 2025 signals a depressing milestone in the existential crises of unemployment generally, and youth unemployment specifically.
“Unemployed youth (15-34 years) increased by 151,000 to 4.8 million. … The youth unemployment statistics are an indictment of policy disconnect in post-schooling education and training despite the ongoing transformation project of massifying and deracialising education.”
