South Africa’s e-hailing union wants to send young Uber drivers to university

The National E-hailing Federation of South Africa (NEFSA) has disclosed plans to help young Uber and Bolt drivers operating on its platform attend tertiary institutions and earn degrees. This was disclosed by the President of the federation, Comrade Uhuru Lekgokwane, in a chat with Technext.

Describing it as an Education Development Programme, Comrade Lekgokwane noted that roughly 162,000 people are operating in the country’s e-hailing sector, with young persons aged 18 to 30 constituting nearly 68 per cent of them. While some of these young people have a university entry qualification, many do not.

And the NEFSA president believes it will be naive to talk about the future while neglecting the young ones who are probably only driving to keep body and soul together.

“Not everybody will end up being a driver on the road. South Africa needs technicians. South Africa needs engineers. We need business people. We need lawyers. And we took it upon ourselves to develop programs in collaboration with institutions of higher learning. bring these young men into tertiary education in order to improve the skill capital of the country. But more importantly, to make sure that we advance the betterment of their livelihood,” Comrade Lekgokwane said.

NEFSA logo

The president said the policy is still under review as the federation is soliciting expert views on how best to develop it. He also noted that despite its expansive scope, there would nonetheless be considerable focus on programmes for the transport business.

This includes transport management, fleet management, and vehicle inspectors who would support government transport officials.

NEFSA to partner with South African schools

Comrade Uhuru Lekgokwane noted that the driver education programme is not necessarily a new one in the South African transport sector, as there is already a programme by the Transport Education Training Authority (TETA).

However, unlike the TETA programme, which focuses on transport training, NEFSA’s Education Development Programme will afford drivers the liberty to study other courses outside transportation.

“We are not going to limit it to transport alone. We will be naive to say everything is transport. We want as many people as we can have trained in that space. But we also want those scientists within us to realise their visions tomorrow as scientists in the country, and so on and so forth. We have to go beyond that because some people will not necessarily be interested in the transport sector,” he said.

Comrade Uhuru Lekgokwane, President of NEFSA

He noted that despite the need for education across Africa, education has become a big business and, as such, has become very expensive for many people. NEFSA will help tackle this problem by pushing the young people through the program.

To achieve this, the association said it is already looking at public-private arrangements with tertiary institutions.

The president said institutions like the Free State University and Western Cape University, among others, have already shown interest in partnering with the association. Once the programme is finalised, they will formally approach the institutions.

The NEFSA will also be targeting social partner funding agencies to assist towards financing to get many young people into various programs.

“We are a public organisation. We bring these institutions together and say, look, there is a gap of human resource capital in here. Can we try to bring these kids into the space? Let us not leave them in the street forever. What about their future? What about the future of the country’s economy? We cannot afford human capital waste. We can’t afford that. We have to arrest that situation,” he finished.

See also: Uber drivers in South Africa demand fare adjustment, reduced commission amid fuel price hike