More than one in every three young people in South Africa did not have a job in the first three months of 2018. With unemployment rates close to 40% in youth and young adults between ages 15-34, solutions to aid employment are on the national agenda.

Education technology company Eiffel Corp and Symplicity, a global provider of higher education solutions, have announced a new channel partnership agreement.

According to Eiffel Corp commercial director Stefan du Plessis, the high unemployment rate indicates that South African young people face extreme difficulties engaging with the labour market. Unemployment is not unique to the under-educated and skilled.

“The graduate unemployment rate was 33,5% for those aged 15-24 and 10,2% among those aged 25-34 years, while the rate among adults (aged 35-64 years) was 4,7%,” says Du Plessis.

“For the last twenty years Eiffel has been engaged in the student lifecycle and committed to student throughput, offering the best solutions and services to universities on the African continent. It made sense to partner with Symplicity given their global expertise in student engagement and employability. The partnership will enable us to add innovative employment solutions to our existing offering of learner management systems, content development services and analytics that support student throughput,” he adds.

“We have been engaging with education stakeholders about the various components to education: digital skills, access via technology and employability, so this partnership supports our belief that we have a role to play in graduate placement.

“Partnering with Symplicity allows us to bring a new set of innovative and proven solutions to our clients that will help universities increase employability outcomes, employer engagement and rankings.”

Thomas Jepsen, vice-president: international at Symplicity, says that Symplicity is currently supporting more than 1 300 higher education institutions globally.

“We’re helping universities to better manage all aspects of student life, to ensure that students have better chances for employment and success in the future world of work. We’ve assisted 26-million job seekers around the world to find meaningful and appropriate employment.

“I believe this partnership will bring exciting new opportunities to universities in South Africa that will support their employability initiatives. With Eiffel, we have found a fantastic partner that stands for excellence, best practice and expertise.”