The Department of Basic Education held a Presidential Youth Employment Intervention Interprovincial Meeting for 9 Provincial Education Department’s at Helyards Hotel in Port Alfred.

The meeting was a physical gathering between the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Western Cape and the Gauteng Province sharing their plans, challenges and mitigation on the implementation of the PYEI since Phase 1.

Giving the purpose of the day was the DBE National Project Manager, Lala Maje she said, "The purpose of this gathering was to assess progress made in the implementation of PYEI-BEEI phase IV across the nine provinces."

Therefore, DBE wanted to bring the 9 PED's together to ensure common standard and consistency in the implementation of the programme.

"Lastly the meeting was also assessing readiness and will on a continuous basis explore and investigate, how to ensure that this initiative is institutionalized and funded correctly," added Maje.

Talking on behalf of the ECDoE was the Human Resource Development Acting Director and the Eastern Cape Project Manager, Lukhanyo Sidiya, she said, "DBE selected the Eastern Cape as the first province to host the Inter-provincial meeting with an aim of bringing all provinces together to comprehend the best practices from the Eastern Cape in terms of  recruitment, appointments, training and development being the best system in the country, so basically they wanted to know our strategy and to see if the project is a success."

Speaking on behalf of the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department, was KZN Education Project Manager, Premier Governder, she said, "The meeting was a wonderful chance to meet with other Project Managers and share best practices, attending this meeting I have learnt about the electronic systems utilised by some PEDs to gather info and also get a sense of some of the challenges faced for Phase IV.l."

Therefore, the ideas shared will help since KZN will only commence with appointments for Phase IV in March 2023, In some cases, the challenges faced by others served to confirm that KZN were correct in some approaches taken," added Governder.

Closing remarks were done by the ECDoE Human Resource Management Acting Chief Director, Qapela Luthuli, he said, "We are grateful that we, as the ECDOE had managed to host such a warm and arrangement gathering in the province of the legends and believe that more can be done to improve youth unemployment statistics in country."