As South Africa celebrates the Youth Day on Saturday, an anti-apartheid activist urged students in the country to cherish the hard-earned opportunity for better education and focus on their study.

"Students must use this day (the Youth Day) to work hard and take their education seriously," said Antoinette Sithole, sister of Hector Pieterson, who was killed on June 16, 1976 in an uprising in Soweto near Johannesburg.

The aim of the South African revolutionary struggle and the June 16 Soweto Uprising was for South Africans to have a better life through education, Sithole told Xinhua at the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Soweto.

Black students took to the streets on June 16, 1976 to protest the introduction of the Afrikaans language as the medium of instruction in local schools. Around 20,000 students took part in the protest and 176 people were killed, including Pieterson who is now memorized as a national hero in the fight against apartheid.

The uprising is believed to have accelerated the demise of apartheid, and June 16 is now a national holiday dedicated to the country's youth.

"This is not the day for students to demand unnecessary rights. They must not abuse it thinking it's the day for them to declare their freedom," said Sithole, who narrowly escaped death herself during the uprising.

"Our demand was better education for all. This is the day to advance education rights, not the right to abuse the education privilege they (the students) have. This is the day for students to be reminded that education did not just come for free," Sithole said.

"Our kids must know that the future of this country is in their hands," she added, lamenting that some South African students today are not taking education seriously.

"We want them to fight with books, not with teachers and parents," she stressed.