Cape Town - Engineering graduates in South Africa may have to start doing community service if the ANC gets its way.
The ANC delegates at the party's policy conference in Midrand debated the matter and the party will vote on the issue in December at the ANC's national conference.
Dr Blade Nzimande, minister of higher education, says the ANC has decided to look seriously at compulsory community service by all graduates other than in the medical professions.
Nzimande says the community service may help graduates who cannot get jobs, to gain neccessary experience before enteriung the formal jobs sector.
"We think we'll start in some place like engineering and gradually move to other areas to eventually inlclude all graduates," Nzimande told the media this morning.
"We have not looked at the length of the community service. If it's 1 year or two years. We do have a report on the matter, but we have not done enough work. We've sent them to do more work to get a better understanding. The indications are however, that the community service will certainly not be shorter than 1 year," said Nzimande.
He says the plan is the graduates would be employe by government institutions.