Despite a slight decline in unemployment figures recorded for the fourth quarter of 2022, youth unemployment remains a great concern, as the age group accounts for over half of South Africa’s employable population.
Studies suggests that one of the main contributors to the country’s youth unemployment, is that young work seekers lack sufficient skills, training development and work experience.
In response to the high unemployment rate, Media platform, Trace, recently introduced Trace Academia, a free online platform for vocational training designed for young South Africans and Africans as a whole.
Trace Academia is a mobile app that offers free courses and certificates dedicated to jobs, entrepreneurship, and soft skills. This is done by providing youth with useful skills and connecting them to employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.
According to Trace its mission is to empower young people, by providing them with free learning from the world’s best experts as well as opportunities to kickstart their career.
Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Trace, Olivier Laouchez explains:
We decided to create Trace Academia about two years ago, based on the reality of the very high youth unemployment rate here in this country, and the fact that majority of young people will not go for Higher Education.
He says that they wanted to bring a solution to issue of youth unemployment and did so by building a platform in partnership with several of brands, institutions and people who are motivated to fight against youth unemployment.
What Trace Academia Offers
Laouchez says that once young people have downloaded the app the platform will offer them a few things:
- Self-assessments for young people, to help find out what they are good at and what their strengths are. (Find out who you are and what you are interested in)
- The platform teaches individuals different things via online FREE courses. Courses and certificates including music, beauty, fashion, entrepreneurship, digital marketing, hotel & restaurants, creativity, journalism, film, tech, public speaking, agility, electricity, DIY and wellbeing.
- The platform also assists youth with technical and soft skills needed to do the job and enter labour market.
- Connects participants with employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.
All the Trace Academic courses and certificates have quizzes, presenters, and exciting videos to engage and keep your attention and help you finish your course or certificate.
The app is 100% free and once individuals have downloaded content they can use if without data and continue learning and obtain certificates, noted Laouchez.
We did a lot of research to understand the mechanisms on how to get people to engage with this platform and we are very proud because in just a few months we’ve already got 1.4 million downloads of the platform.
The platforms goal is to reach 25 million young people by the year 2025 and is determined to build and expand the platform.
Trace Academia has appealed to government and the Department of Higher Education to also get onboard and partner with the organisation so that they are able to expand the platform and ultimately help more young people in the country.
