Lecturer at the Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS), at the University of Ghana, Dr Pearl Kyei, has expressed the need for government to encourage people to use alternative sources of learning to complement what they are getting in schools Iin order to make them employable.
According to her, the report released by the Ghana Statistical Service on World Youth Skills Day which shows that in the third quarter of last year, about 1.5 million Ghanaian youth aged between 15 and 24 years were neither in any form of education, employment or training, is a worrying phenomenon.
She revealed that the press release was done to raise awareness on World Youth Skills Day, which is supposed to highlight the importance of equipping the youth with employable skills to be able to transition to the labour market, live productive lives and also contribute to the development of the nation.
“Definitely, if we are recording the same proportion as the global number, then it’s definitely something we should be concerned about… Now, a lot of the things that ILO and UNESCO talk about in terms of youth skills, they go beyond reading and writing. They talk about employable skills, working with teammates, communicating, problem solving, critical thinking and more importantly, getting those skills that you need from on the job training and work experience.
“Sometimes the youth do not have that, so it’s really important that even as people are going through the formal education systems, we find ways to develop these employable skills so they don’t struggle to find jobs when they are out of the formal educational system. We need to encourage people to use alternative sources of learning to complement what they are getting in schools to make them employable.”
Dr Pearl Kyei
Dr Kyei stated that the youth not engaged in education, employment or training, is actually one of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators. With this, she explained that what has been seen in other studies is that when the youth are not engaged in any of these three areas, their risk of being socially excluded is high, because they are not working, not in school and largely don’t have the skills to get those jobs that will lead them to have productive lives.
“So, really, the goal for every nation is to try to make sure that the youth are really engaged as productively as possible… In terms of the long term implications, you know demographics talks a lot about what we call the demographic dividend and it’s something that if you look at the development of East Asian countries, when you equip your youth with skills, and they can get skilled jobs that they can use to take care of themselves and also contribute to the development of the nation, then you put yourself on a good track for sustainable development.”
Dr Pearl Kyei
Relevance of skills to youth development
Furthermore, Dr Kyei noted that when the youth do not have those skills, then government is at the risk of not being able to reap the demographic dividend which is supposed to help the country develop.
As a consequent, she revealed that equipping the youth with skills is very important and the focus must be on skills and not just education, because “we know that you may not get everything that you need from the formal educational system”.
Additionally, Dr Kyei underscored the significance of digital skills, because per UNESCO, more than 90% of jobs will require digital skills.
“We also have to ensure that our youth have the digital skills, they are able to have access to those devices that they will be able to use to access the internet or to get information… I know recently, there was a census report on digital exclusion, and we found that really about a million of the youth had not used an ICT device in the three months preceding census night, and that’s really not a good thing. Because the internet has been shown to be one of the ways that you can access training opportunities, job opportunities and also be able to develop their experience.”
Dr Pearl Kyei
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