Monewa Matlwa | Managing Director | Young Aspiring Thinkers (YAT) | mail me |
During my time working at South African Breweries (SAB), I watched young graduates arrive on the factory floor holding hard-earned chemistry degrees. They possessed brilliant theoretical minds. They understood molecular bonds and complex reactions on paper. Yet, when a critical machine on the production line broke down, those degrees often could not get the line moving again.
The people who kept the heart of the operation beating were the artisans. They did not hold four-year university qualifications. However, they possessed years of practical, vocational experience. They understood the mechanics and the immediate problem-solving required to keep a complex operation running. In fact, some earned more than the graduates standing beside them.
This experience did not diminish the value of a chemistry degree. Rather, it exposed a systemic blind spot. We have built an educational hierarchy based on prestige instead of practicality. In doing so, we have created a generational promise that a university degree is the only path to a prosperous life. However, the real world has changed. Today, the education crisis reflects a growing disconnect between what classrooms promise and what the economy demands.
Bridging this gap requires us to redefine educational success. We must prioritise a model that places economic utility at the centre.
Fit-for-purpose, the first instance
When we view education through the lens of utility, the organising question changes. The issue is no longer whether a university degree is “better” than a vocational certificate. Instead, we should ask what determines whether a degree, diploma, certificate, artisanal pathway or entrepreneurial route is the right choice for a specific individual and a specific labour market.
When the conversation focuses on fit-for-purpose, we stop treating vocational training as a fallback plan for those who missed out on university. We also stop viewing it as an inferior pathway. Instead, we recognise vocational training as a vibrant, high-value, and future-proof career option.
Currently, our system produces too many theorists and too few builders. Thousands of university graduates enter saturated job markets with degrees but limited job prospects. At the same time, vocational, artisan and emerging technology sectors face critical skills shortages. We should measure educational success by utility. In other words, we should ask whether an educational pathway genuinely equips a young person to participate meaningfully in the economy. Addressing the education crisis requires this shift in thinking.
The Grade 9 utility trap
I would argue that this misdirection stems from the rigid structure of career guidance in our schooling system. In Grade 9, fifteen-year-olds must make subject choices. Those decisions often lock them into specific academic tracks for the rest of their working lives.
Currently, our career guidance model fails to address long-term economic utility in three distinct ways. First, we rely heavily on psychometric tests. We assume that a test score at 15 can predict a career at 45. It cannot. A test tells us nothing about a young person’s emotional intelligence, resilience, adaptability or entrepreneurial drive. Yet, these are precisely the qualities needed to succeed in a fluid, technology-driven economy where careers constantly evolve.
Second, learners in township or rural communities often have limited career exposure. They usually see only occupations represented in their immediate surroundings or on television, such as police officers, teachers or doctors. As a result, careers such as a data scientist or a mechatronics engineer may never enter their daily experience.
Third, a learner who struggles with rote learning may possess the spatial awareness, curiosity, and analytical determination required to become an exceptional automation technician or specialised welder. Nevertheless, our current career guidance system fails to evaluate utility.
At Grade 9, we do not ask young people what they want to achieve. We also fail to ask about the economic utility of their chosen pathway or how that pathway should evolve as they grow. Career guidance should be a continuous service. It should remain just as relevant to a 14-year-old as it is to a 50-year-old recalibrating a career. If South Africa hopes to overcome the education crisis, lifelong career guidance must become a national priority.
Career exploration for the Netflix generation
This is the challenge we set out to solve when we founded our organisation in 2019. Like many organisations trying to solve a structural problem with limited resources, we nearly folded more than once. Unpredictable funding cycles placed us under constant pressure. However, we remained committed because we believed the gap between classroom and career would only continue to widen. Someone had to build the bridge.
That conviction strengthened considerably after I completed a master’s degree in AI and analytics at NYU in 2022. It became clear that we finally had the tools to deliver career guidance properly, at scale, and in a way that was personalised to each individual. Consequently, we built our solution accordingly. Think of it as career exploration for the Netflix generation.
Instead of browsing television shows, learners browse career options. Instead of movie trailers, they watch a “trailer” for a career. They receive a realistic, day-in-the-life view of what a quantity surveyor, mechatronics engineer, or sound designer actually does. From there, they choose a pathway. That pathway may be vocational, entrepreneurial, traditionally academic or part of an emerging field. It then connects directly to an economic opportunity, such as a job, bursary or funding stream. Career guidance cannot end with a personality quiz.
An Artificial Intelligence (AI) recommendation algorithm underpins this approach. It follows the same principle that Netflix uses to recommend your next series. The system learns from learners’ interests and willingness to explore rather than their academic performance. We deliberately designed it as a psychometric-free way of listening to young people. The goal is to create an end-to-end journey. It begins with a learner’s first questions about their future. It continues through their first application. Ultimately, it leads to their first meaningful economic opportunity.
Designing for the real economy
To correct our national course, we must design career guidance and educational pathways around live labour market data, national skills shortages, and future economic growth sectors. We also need to tell young people the truth about where opportunities genuinely exist.
For example, South Africa’s agricultural sector offers funding opportunities and significant growth potential. However, it continues to struggle to attract sufficient interest. Meanwhile, many young people remain concentrated in a narrow range of familiar career pathways where entry-level opportunities cannot absorb everyone seeking employment.
Germany provides a useful example. The country formally recognises, funds and supports vocational and skilled-trade pathways. It also connects those pathways to clear routes for professional advancement and entrepreneurship.
The degree dilemma is entirely within our power to solve. We can align career guidance with real-world utility. We can celebrate diverse educational pathways. We can also prioritise fit-for-purpose opportunities instead of institutional prestige. By doing so, we can transform a generation of anxious job seekers into a formidable force of skilled, economically secure builders. More importantly, we can begin addressing the education crisis by ensuring that education prepares young people for the economy they will actually enter.
