A generation buried before it’s born

DISTURBING reports are coming out of rural schools: learners are abandoning classrooms for gold panning, driven by poverty, bleak job prospects and the glitter of the yellow metal.

That a learner who should be dreaming of becoming a doctor or an engineer has resigned himself to descending into dangerous pits for a few dollars is a testament to what is wrong in our society.

Gold panning is no bed of roses  violence, social ills and collapsing pits are its common hazards.

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