Johannesburg - The acting Minister for Public Service and Administration, Thulas Nxesi, has called upon government departments and public entities to enrol young people (interns) within their various departments.
This is in line with the Breaking Barriers to Entry into the Public Service Programme (BB2E) and the Cadet Programme, which are aimed at preparing young people for careers in the public sector and the work environment in general, as the country observes Youth Month.
The five-day BB2E course and the 18-month Cadet Programme are offered by the National School of Government (NSG) and target unemployed graduates with post-school qualifications and interns in the public sector and statutory bodies.
BB2E is a five-day course that introduces young people to government and teaches them how government works and the strategies employed in delivering quality public services.
The course also covers how public funds are administered and managed. They learn how to carry out basic administrative and communication functions, the policies and prescripts that guide the appointment of persons into the public service, and how to write resumes and prepare themselves for interviews.
Nxesi spoke of the importance of the government playing an active role in reducing the number of unemployed youth who have tertiary qualifications.
“The unemployment rate among youth with post-school qualifications is very high in our country.” he said.
“The public service, as the largest employer, has responded to this challenge by enabling unemployed graduates to gain experience through the Public Service Graduate Internship and Learnership Programme.”
The 18-month Cadet Programme is a sister initiative to the successful Breaking Barriers to Entry into the Public Service initiative and seeks to deepen the candidates’ understanding of the public sector whilst also covering topics related to the broader social entrepreneurial space.
The programme is broken up into four courses/modules which are: The Constitution and the Administration of the Public Sector, Ethics in the Public Service, Writing for Government and Personal Mastery.
The Personal Mastery component is especially crucial as it covers other generic employability skills that are necessary for the workplace in both the public and private sectors.
These include self-management, emotional intelligence, job search skills, problem-solving skills as well as entrepreneurship.
Forty-five officials from the various provincial departments will attend training on personal Personal Mastery from 20 June to 24 June 2022.
The desired outcome of these training sessions is that these officials should be able to go back to their departments empowered and developed to train the youth on Personal Mastery.
Minister Nxesi said the ultimate goal is to shape the young graduates into “public service cadres of a special kind”.
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