Ask almost any member of the digital press corps in South Africa what their most read story of the year is, and the chances are extremely high that it will be something matric-related, published in early January. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: aside from understandable levels of excitement and trepidation among those finishing high school and their families, there’s a particular pressure on South Africans at this time of year. The youth unemployment crisis in this country has gone beyond the kind of scale that ordinary humans can hold in their tiny heads. Like an astronomical body, we can register the concept that it is big, but the actual bigness of it has become entirely abstract – and getting qualifications is vital to beating the stats.

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, for Q4 2024, shows that there are, conservatively, some three million people between the ages of 25 and 34 who are unemployed, or 39.4% of the working population within that group. The same survey shows that unemployment among those with graduate degrees is less than 9%, compared with 38.2% for those who do not have a matric certificate.