The Free State Department of Education calls on the youth to apply for the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) programme offering assistant teachers and general assistants’ temporary employment. Applications close on 16 October, having been open since 16 September.
The PYEI project is open for South Africans between the ages of 18 and 35 years, who have obtained a National Senior Certificate (NSC). Intake will be for the fourth phase of the project which was launched in December 2020.
Successful applicants will be placed across all public schools to work as education assistants, assistant teachers or general school assistants for a four-month period.
“Applicants should be young people who were not part of phase 1, 2 or 3 of the PYEI, and live 5 km away from the schools they applied for placement. They must not be working, studying, receiving a social grant, and not in any training or learnership programme,” said Howard Ndaba, provincial spokesperson for the department.
“In addition, applicants must have no criminal record,” Ndaba stresses.
To apply, interested and eligible young people are advised to register on sayouth.mobi, an online recruitment system that is used by government to manage youth unemployment. Applicants are given three weeks to submit their application on sayouth.mobi.
Ndaba said interviews for shortlisted candidates will be conducted from November to December this year, with successful applicants starting in February 2023. According to Ndaba, the programme has proven critical in terms of enabling youths to gain the necessary work experience.
He said in the previous phases, the programme benefited numerous candidates: 19 226 (first phase), 15 309 (second phase), 15 309 (third phase) and 15 500 (fourth phase). Some of these candidates are graduates who have diplomas and degrees obtained from different academic institutions. They add to South Africa’s staggering youth unemployed figure, presently hovering at 46,5%, according to Stats SA.
