Address by President Ramaphosa on Youth Day, FNB Stadium, Johannesburg

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

Programme Director,
Minister for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Ms Sindisiwe Chikunga,
Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Mr Gayton McKenzie,
Acting Premier of Gauteng, Ms Faith Mazibuko,
Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Councillor Dada Morero,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Members of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures,
Executive Chairperson and Board of the National Youth Development Agency,
Co-Founder and CEO of One Young World, Ms Kate Robertson,
Managing Director of One Young World, Ms Ella Robertson McKay,
Representatives of youth formations,
Veterans of our liberation struggle,
Distinguished Guests,
And the youth of our beloved nation,
Sanibonani. Dumelang. Avuxeni. Molweni. Ndi matsheloni. Lotjhani. Goeie môre. Good morning.

Fifty years ago, not far from where we stand today, thousands of young South Africans marched carrying nothing but their schoolbooks, their courage and their dreams.

They faced bullets with bare hands. They confronted injustice with extraordinary bravery.

And through their sacrifice, they changed the course of our nation's history.

On the 16th of June the children of Soweto walked out of their classrooms and into history.

They were told they could not learn in their own language, in their own country, on equal terms.

They refused that limit. And many of them paid for that refusal with their lives.

We gather here to mark 50 years since the uprising of South Africa's youth on the 16th June 1976.

Half a century later, we remember, celebrate and honour a generation of young people whose courage, organisation and hunger for freedom marked a turning point in the struggle against apartheid.

The question before us today is not whether young people have the courage to change South Africa. The youth of 1976 answered that question.

The question before us is whether South Africa is doing enough to create opportunities worthy of their sacrifice.

Speaking on the 20th anniversary of the uprising, President Nelson Mandela addressed the youth of our country. He said:
"On that fateful day 20 years ago, you jolted this nation from its slumber, and rejected the slave education that the apartheid regime had implemented… You changed the course of history, and accelerated the downfall of the apartheid system."

It was here that thousands of learners left their classrooms to protest against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in their schools.
But their protest was about more than language.

It was a rejection of Bantu Education, which was designed to limit the aspirations of black children and prepare them for lives of servitude.

It was a protest against the injustice, impoverishment, denigration and daily hardship imposed upon the black child by the cruel system of apartheid.

From the streets of Soweto issued a powerful cry for justice, for dignity, for equality.

The struggle of young people did not begin with the class of 1976.

They stood on the shoulders of earlier generations - leaders such as Anton Lembede, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Albertina Sisulu, Lilian Ngoyi and Robert Sobukwe - who moved the liberation struggle towards mass mobilisation and direct action.

They were shaped, too, by a wider current of liberation. Across the continent, the struggles of Ghana, Algeria, Mozambique, Angola and the Congo showed that colonialism could be defeated.

Across the diaspora, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements affirmed the dignity of black people.

By the early 1970s, the Black Consciousness Movement was teaching a new generation to reject notions of inferiority, to recover their dignity, to reclaim their identity and to forge their own future.

By the time the learners of 1976 took to the streets, they were part of a powerful river of youth resistance.

Many students were killed.

Many young people were injured, detained or forced into exile.

The image of Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying Hector Pieterson, with his sister, Antoinette Sithole, running alongside, conveyed to the world the brutality of apartheid.

Their contribution belongs in the centre of our national memory.

The young people of 1976 did not stand alone.

They were supported by parents, teachers, health workers, religious leaders and community structures.

They were supported by leaders such as Mama Albertina Sisulu and Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the Black Parents Association and the Soweto Committee of Ten.

We remember in particular the mothers who searched for their children, the mothers who mourned and the women who expressed the pain of the nation when apartheid expected them to be silent.

The uprising began in Soweto, but it did not remain there.

It spread to Alexandra, Tembisa and KwaThema, and later to Langa, Gugulethu, Nyanga and townships across the country, giving new momentum to the struggle against apartheid.

The cries of these young people reverberated across the world, galvanising the international movement to condemn and isolate apartheid South Africa.

This year, Youth Day takes place at the intersection of important milestones of freedom.

In addition to the 50th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, we also mark 70 years since the Women's March of 1956 and 30 years since the adoption of our democratic Constitution in 1996.

Together, these milestones remind us that freedom was built across generations: by the women who resisted pass laws, by the young people who rose against Bantu Education, and by a Constitution that reflects the views and aspirations of all the people of South Africa.

As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, we are called on to ensure that freedom lives in every generation, and to reflect honestly on the work that must still be done so that freedom is felt in the lives of young people today.

The South Africa of today is not the South Africa of 1976.

We are no longer governed by laws that decide what a black child may learn, where they may live, what work they may do and what future they may imagine.

That change did not come by chance. It was won through struggle, protected through our Constitution and advanced through the policies and programmes of our democratic governments.

The youth of 1976 were not the last generation to organise for change.

We remember young freedom fighters such as Solomon Mahlangu, the Cradock Four and Nokuthula Simelane, and the youth and student formations that helped make apartheid ungovernable.

In the democratic era, that same spirit continued through the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall movements.

Because of these generations of struggle, South Africa has changed fundamentally.

The Constitution of 1996 guarantees the right to basic education.

Through legislation such as the South African Schools Act and the Higher Education Act, we dismantled the legal architecture of apartheid education and began building a system founded on equality, access and redress.

Since 1994, access to schooling has been significantly expanded.

No-fee schools now support children from poor households.

The School Nutrition Programme feeds more than nine million learners every school day.

Last year, South Africa recorded the highest matric pass rate in our history, with more than two-thirds of bachelor passes coming from schools in disadvantaged communities.

We have opened the doors of post-school education and training.

This year, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme approved funding for more than a million students at universities and colleges.

Today, our country produces four times the number of African graduates than it did in 1994. These are doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, scientists, entrepreneurs and leaders in many fields.

Young people are taking their place in public leadership. Today, more than 80 Members of the National Assembly are aged 40 or younger.

These gains show that democracy has opened doors that apartheid deliberately kept closed.

But opening doors is not enough. The task now is to ensure that those doors lead to skills, work, enterprise, ownership and dignity.

We must be honest about the challenge before us.

More than 4.7 million young people are unemployed.

The youth unemployment rate stands at 46 percent.

Behind every statistic is a young person who wants to work, wants to contribute and wants to build a future.

It is the graduate who sends out dozens of applications and receives no response.

It is the young entrepreneur with an idea but no access to capital.

It is the skilled artisan who cannot find an opportunity to demonstrate their talents.

We cannot accept this as normal.

Young people are among the most affected by violent crime and theft.

These are some of the greatest threats to our country's prosperity and social stability.

Faced with these challenges, there are some who blame the problems of unemployment, crime and poor service delivery on foreign nationals.

Even as we recognise the challenge of illegal immigration - which we are taking decisive action to address - our problems are our own. And which we have a responsibility to fix ourselves.

We recognise that many communities are frustrated by crime, unemployment and pressure on public services.

These frustrations are real and must never be dismissed.

But we must also be honest about their causes.

The roots of these challenges lie primarily in inequality, slow economic growth and weaknesses in service delivery.

Addressing these challenges requires practical solutions, not the scapegoating of vulnerable people.

The challenges facing young people are grave and their concerns are real.

That is why our response to these challenges must be comprehensive and urgent.

In this regard, government is acting on three fronts.

First, we are expanding public employment, youth service and workplace experience.

More than 5.7 million young people are now registered on the SA Youth.mobi platform. Of these, more than 2 million young people have gained access to earning opportunities.

The Presidential Employment Stimulus has created work and livelihood opportunities for more than 2.5 million unemployed South Africans.

Of these, 82 percent were young people and 66 percent were women.

Through the pilot phase of the Jobs Boost Outcomes Fund, over 9,000 young people have been enrolled and more than 7,200 successfully placed into employment.

This shows the potential of training that is linked to employment opportunities.

The revitalised National Youth Service has placed more than 130,000 young people in paid service opportunities to date, with an additional 100,000 community service youth employment opportunities currently available.

These interventions give young people a foothold in the world of work, but they are not the final destination.

That is why our overarching priority at the moment is to grow an inclusive economy that creates sustainable jobs at scale.

Second, we are reshaping the skills system so that qualifications lead more directly to work and enterprise.

We are moving away from training for training's sake.

That is why we are strengthening TVET colleges as engines of occupational skills and linking colleges, employers and SETAs to the needs of local economies.

Skills are not formed in classrooms alone. They are formed in workplaces, industries, communities and enterprises.

Third, we are opening the productive economy to young people.

Over the next three years, the state is investing R1 trillion in infrastructure.

We are building and maintaining roads, dams, schools, hospitals, clinics, electricity lines, railway lines and port infrastructure.

This investment will create apprenticeships, artisan development, skills transfer and enterprise development for young people.

Our growth strategy is focused on sectors that create jobs at scale: manufacturing, mining beneficiation, digital infrastructure, agriculture, green industrialisation, energy, logistics, critical minerals, tourism and the creative economy.

Young people must be an integral part of these industries.

They must be trained for these industries, work in them, build businesses in them and own a part of them.

The small business portfolio will provide support to one million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises over this term of government.

The Public Procurement Act gives us the opportunity to use the buying power of the state to support enterprises owned by young people, women and persons with disabilities.

Unemployment must be seen as a societal problem. All stakeholders in our country must work together to provide sustainable solutions to reduce unemployment among young people.

Government has a responsibility and is continuously taking action to address this problem. The private sector has a responsibility too to address the challenge of unemployment.

I want to speak directly to the employers of South Africa - to every business owner, every manager, every person who holds in their hands the power to hire.

The young person in front of you does not lack ability. They lack only the chance to prove it.

I am asking you to open the door. Hire for potential, not only for experience.

Take the chance on the young person who has never been given one.

And I say to you: government will not ask you to carry that risk alone.

Through the Employment Tax Incentive, we already share the cost of bringing a young person into their first job. We will strengthen that support, because the first job is the hardest to get and the most important a person ever has.

We must change how we prepare young people from the beginning. We therefore call upon employers to hire a young person and not require them to have experience before you hire them.

As the country prepares for the next local government elections, we must place young people at the centre of building municipalities that work.

Young people must not only be councillors. They must be the engineers, planners, artisans, water technicians, electricians, data specialists and entrepreneurs who build sustainable cities, towns and villages.

Our progress as a nation must be measured by whether young people are moving from school to skills, from skills to work, and from enterprise support to markets, scale and ownership.

This is how we honour the youth of 1976: by building a South Africa in which every young person has a fair chance to learn, work, serve, build, create, own and live with dignity.

Across South Africa there are over 37 million young people under the age of 35.

This is our country's greatest strength.

The youthfulness of our population provides our country with a dynamism, innovativeness and potential productivity that few other countries outside our continent can match.

This generation must take its place in every part of our national life: in the economy, in public institutions, in communities, in innovation, in culture and in the work of building our democracy.

The young people of 1976 remind us that freedom is not protected by memory alone.

It is protected by active citizenship, by organisation, by discipline, by service and by responsibility.

Today's generation has tools that the youth of 1976 did not have.

They have technology, information and platforms that can connect communities, expose injustice and build enterprises.

Technology must be matched by purpose, organisation and commitment to the common good.

As we look to the future, young people must be at the centre of democratic participation.

They must register to vote, vote in elections, engage municipalities and hold public representatives accountable.

Democracy is not only what happens in Parliament and council chambers.

It is also built in schools, campuses, workplaces, churches, sports fields, community halls, streets and homes.

President Nelson Mandela said at the birth of our democracy that "the time to build is upon us".

This is the responsibility of our lifetime: to ensure that young people have the opportunity, support and confidence to build their lives and shape the future of our country.

Let us honour the youth of 1976 not only by remembering their courage, but by continuing the work for which they sacrificed so much.

Let us build a South Africa in which freedom lives in every generation.

Fifty years ago, the youth of 1976 marched for the right to learn. They faced down bullets armed with nothing but the conviction that their minds mattered.

Today's generation inherits that courage, but the battle has changed.

The youth of 1976 fought exclusion. Ours must fight unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Theirs was the struggle to enter the classroom. Ours is the struggle to ensure that what begins in the classroom does not end in the unemployment queue.

Just as they refused the limits imposed upon them, we too must refuse a future of diminished possibilities.

Let us build a South Africa where every young person can realise their potential.

Let us build a South Africa in which freedom lives in every generation.

So let us honour them not in words alone, but in deeds.

Let us build a South Africa where every young person can realise their potential.

Where opportunity is not the privilege of a few, but the birthright of all.

A South Africa in which freedom lives anew in every generation.

I thank you.