Youth Speakup on Employment opportunities for the Youth

Unemployment remains a major development issue globally, and in Ghana, the rates are quite high especially among economically active population- the youth. The international labor organization (ILO) refers to youth unemployment as the share of the labour force within ages 15-24 without work but available for and seeking employment. 

In Ghana the number of the youth in the total population(25.90 million at 2013) has increased from 1.1 million in 1960 to 2.3 million in 1984, and to 3.5 million in 2000( World Bank, WDI, 2014) .

Hopin Academy and its partners; RUMNET, YEFL and Ghana Friends in Denmark have launched the Youth Speak UP project to speak out against many of these social vices. This Saturday the Youth Speakup Team will discuss "How accessible are employment opportunities for the youth"  The project focuses mainly on youth in some four deprived districts of Tamale, Northern Ghana; Kumbungu, Savelugu, Saboba and Karaga. Youth Speak Up will be holding both offline and online discussions on how accessible are employment opportunities for the youth in the identified districts.

The World Bank statistics also indicate that about 65 percent of the unemployed in Ghana can be found in the 15-24 years age group. The problem of youth unemployment can be identified in two forms; the difficult transition from school to work, even for youths who are job-ready; and unemployment for youths who lack basic academic skills probably because they are drop outs. Under-employment, another form of unemployment, is also a major problem especially among young men and women in rural areas. The majority of employment opportunities for youth in Ghana continue to consist of low-income agricultural and informal activities.

Youth Speakup last discussion was on the recent poor performance of student at the Basic Education Certificate Examination.  Ms. Portia explained that, the curriculum is usually changed in time. According to her, the text books are mostly changed in time as they're awarded to people on contact. This also adds up to the poor performance of students. Mr Alhassan Tahiru, a Statistics Officer of Ghana Education Service, Savelugu-Nanton Municipality agreed to the fact that ''  lack of good foundation given to students at the kindergarten and nursery .Mr. Tahiru said that mass promotion of students also contribute lot to the poor performance of students at the BECE . The P.T.A and assembly members do not actually help teachers teach students well and guiding students to learn.  He also believes the DCEs don't play well their roles.

The transition from school to work has been a frustrating process for many of the youth in Ghana. This is mainly because the job market is not very vibrant and transparent, inadequate job placement centres, most of which are not functioning; very few but highly priced private job placement centers. In the absence of a well-staffed and equipped job placement centres, many of the youth depend on what is generally terms as ‘hearsay’ or ‘having contacts’ to secure formal employment. Generally, high youth unemployment rates in Ghana over the years can be attributed to the following

1. the failure of the economy to generate sufficient employment outlets,
2. the inability for Ghana’s industrial base to develop due to ineffective management of the divestiture processes,
3. the shrinking of public sector employment opportunities and relatively slow growth of the private sector
4. The introduction of the JHS and SHS system without adequate planning for integration into the trades/vocations and job placement has also exacerbated the problem as education and training have no link to the needs of the important sectors of the economy.
5. Lack of coordination between the academia and the corporate or industry is also a major reason for unemployment, especially graduate unemployment
6. rural-urban migration exacerbating the problem of urban youth unemployment

The education system

The present structure of education, starting at the age of 6 years, is a 6-3-3-4 structure representing, 6 years of primary education, 3 years of Junior Secondary School, 3 years of Senior Secondary School and a 4 year university course. The first 9 years of free and compulsory basic education was designed to expose children to a wide variety of ideas and skills while the Junior Secondary School (now junior high school) level education which offered the subjects Agricultural and General Science, Pre- vocational Skills, Pre-technical skills and Social Studies, was meant to be work-oriented. After JHS students may choose to go into different streams of Senior High School (SHS), comprising General Education and Technical, Vocational and Agricultural and Training (TVET) or enter into an apprenticeship scheme. The Senior Secondary School curriculum has Core subjects and with five programs: Agriculture, General (Arts or Science), Business, Vocational and Technical from which 3 elective subjects are chosen. Naturally students who successfully pass the Senior Secondary School Certificate examination can proceed to offer courses at a Polytechnic, Training College or other tertiary institutions. Proponents of the JSS system argued that the system would attract more students into technical, vocational, business, and agricultural institutions. Thus those students who did not gain admission into the SSS would be better equipped to enter the job market.

With Ghana’s bid to reach the middle-income country status by the year 2020, the Vision 2020 education policy had the objectives to ensure all citizens regardless of gender or social status, are functionally literate and productive at the minimum. The policy also has objectives for each sector within the education system and required all sectors to embrace scientific and technological education as well as making education more accessible to girls in order to obtain a gender balance. By the early 2000, the regular annual turn out of graduates from the Junior and Senior Secondary schools, private and public tertiary institutions resulted in many young graduates remaining unemployed, mainly because of inadequate planning for their integration into the trades/vocation of various industries.

The mode of teaching and examining in the various basic and second cycle institutions; the quality of teaching , the monitoring of teachers , mode accessing or examining students , the quantity of subjects, the relevance of subjects are main reasons for producing poor quality outcomes.

Sources; Sanatu Zambang/Modern Ghana