Siphelele Nketo
A GRADE 11 learner, James Clarke (17), from St Patrick’s College in Kokstad, KwaZulu-Natal, could not contain his excitement about the one-day opportunity to be the municipal manager at the Greater Kokstad Municipality on Tuesday, June 23.
For the past three years, the initiative has been offered to female youth to take up leadership roles in managerial offices. However, this year, the programme gave the chance to a male learner to inspire and offer exposure to work activities performed by municipality manager Sipho Zwane, who warmly welcomed Clarke in the municipal boardroom in Kokstad.
He said the initiative started small but later gained momentum and became a yearly programme to expose young people to a work environment during Youth Month.
The first female learner to receive the opportunity in 2023 was Rephethile Sefoloko who was in Grade 7 at the time and Tshepiso Hloele was the second pupil in 2024, followed by Karabelo Setaka in 2025. Setaka was a Grade 11 pupil at Mount Currie Secondary School.
“The impact of the programme on young people is remarkable as it has shaped how they see life in the future,” explained Zwane. Though it was the first time that Clarke set foot inside the municipality building, he appreciated the support he received from the municipality staff and management. In speaking about municipal manager responsibilities, he said he was clueless until he was introduced to the municipal environment.
“I was introduced to different divisions of the municipality such as risk management, and I discovered that all municipal departments work together to achieve service delivery objectives,” he said.
He described the current politics as most interesting and scary, adding that every citizen in South Africa should have a responsibility to know what the government is doing.
