Jobless graduates brave cold and spend third night outside offices in protest

Unemployed Eastern Cape social work graduates yesterday spent their third night protesting outside the provincial social development headquarters in King William’s Town.

The group of about 30 graduates were bankrolled by the department throughout their tertiary studies.

Now they have been camping outside the department premises demanding that they be offered permanent employment, as allegedly promised when they were offered scholarships to various institutions across the province.

They have braved cold and rainy nights since Monday, but on Tuesday evening they erected a tent structure on the doorsteps of the department.

The desperate group, some coming from as far as Port Elizabeth and Mthatha, have vowed to continue doing so until their demand was positively addressed.

Group spokesman Nkqubela Ntloko said they have signed contracts with the department stating that once they complete their studies, they would be absorbed into their system.

They said there were more than 660 other graduates across the province in a similar predicament. With another state-sponsored group of more than 200 expected to graduate in few weeks time, the number of unemployed social work graduates is expected to escalate. As part of their protest, the group have hung their underwear at the main entrance of the department.

They say no one was giving them an ear and that this form of protest was a way of drawing attention to their plight. The group said they had been donated food items and the tent by “good Samaritans” sympathetic to their plight.

However their stay could be short-lived as the department yesterday promised “to explore other avenues” in trying to forcefully remove them and destroy their tent by this afternoon.

Speaking to the Dispatch yesterday, the department’s administration head Stanley Khanyile said there was a huge need for more social workers in the province, “but due to financial constraints, we cannot absorb everyone all at once”.

Khanyile said the department was doing its utmost to solve the impasse, including speaking to other provincial departments, the South African Social Services Agency and non-profit organisations to absorb such graduates.

He said they were also in talks with other provinces such as the Free State and Northern Cape in a bid to find employment for these desperate graduates.

He denied that the department had made an undertaking to employ the graduates, saying there was a clause in their contracts which stipulated that if they were not placed after three months of completing their studies, they were free to look for work elsewhere.

Khanyile said the problem of unemployed social workers was not unique to the Eastern Cape and was widespread across the country.

“Yes there is a need for social workers and we will be employing some soon, but we cannot employ over 500 of them all at once. This is because of lack of finances to do so,” he said.

Khanyile then condemned their action, saying their erecting a tent and blockading roads leading to the department, “was tantamount to threatening and intimidating our staff”.

“It’s not acceptable and cannot be tolerated. We told them to take down the tent and go home peacefully, but should they not do that by tomorrow (Thursday), we will be left with no option but to explore other legal means to forcefully remove them,” he said.

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