The term youth is used to describe a group of people who fall between the age groups of 15-24 years. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines youth as the time of life when one is young especially the period between childhood and adulthood. However, the youth are people I describe as the light of the world and the heart of the nations. Taking a good look at our systems of the world including Africa as a whole, the workforce is made up by a larger population of the youth across board. Thus, the need to recognize and understand the place of the youth and to determine the form of education that should be provided for them to ensure an adequate supply of youth to the workforce which is very essential to the national development in countries in Africa and Ghana in particular.
Why is the need for one to be educated? You may be curious to find out how education is of great importance considering the difficulties in finding jobs in Ghana. Education is the process of delivering learning for the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, habits and personal development. Education in every sense is one of the fundamental factors of development. No country can achieve sustainable economic development without substantial investment in human capital.
Education enriches people’s understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. It improves the quality of their lives and a broad social benefits to individuals and society. Education heightens people’s level of productivity, and creativity and promotes entrepreneurship and technological advancement. In addition, it plays an extremely crucial role in securing economic and social progress and improving income distribution. Taking a trip down memory lane, we discover that the Education Act of 1961 aimed to deliver universal primary education for all pupils in Ghana; this was known as the Accelerated Development Plan for Education (Archin, 1992: 57). That provided opportunities for people in Ghana regardless of gender or class, an improved enrollment for girls and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960), reasserted that every person should hold an equal right to educational opportunities (Paris, 1960).
The 1961 Act also expanded teacher training and provided pupils with the necessary textbooks. President Nkrumah identified basic education and literacy as a prerequisite for rapid economic and social development. Under the Nkrumah administration, secondary education in particular received notable attention, as it was perceived as vital for educational progress and overall national development (Quist, 2003, p190). A ‘national’ secondary schools project, in which quotas for different regions were given for each school, aimed to particularly increase access to secondary education in remote and poor regions such as the Northern, Upper West, and Upper East areas. This is a description of how Ghana’s first president His Excellency Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory prioritized Education in his years in office.
Development on the other hand is described as the qualitative and quantitative improvement in the life of an individual. As ascribed to the quality of growth of a system its policies, the changes applied to the policies and the value of the significant change it causes to these systems and policies; the number of changes over the years with regards to its quantity can be measured to establish the numerical value of development.
Like in most countries, the population of Ghana is largely made up of the youth. This number is increasing daily from those passing out from senior high schools, the university and Post University. As we all know youth between the age group of 15-24, are naturally vibrant and strong people who can take charge of practically everything if they are properly trained and adequately equipped to support national development. In the past 10 years, there has been a rapid increase in the rate of unemployment in Ghana.
Many youths in the country are losing interest and trust in the value of education they spend time acquiring from schools and colleges. Consequentially, this high rates of unemployment is leading the youth to resort to promiscuous lifestyles in pursuit of alternative ways of making money and living for themselves and their dependent families.
As if that is not enough problem for the country, each year there’s a huge number of youth graduating from schools to add to the vast population of unemployed youth.
Furthermore, let us examine another category of graduates from high institutions. These are the university graduates. Having completed university in Ghana you are required to serve the nation by doing a national service for one year after which the newcomers add to the number of unemployed youth that wanders through the overpopulated job market in search of jobs.
The current situation calls for a total overhaul of the entire education system. The quality of education and training they are delivering to the youths needs to be reviewed to ensure it is fit for purpose.
Many industries are seeking trained and qualified workers to boost their operations, whilst there are so many graduates with certificates roaming the streets in search of jobs and nobody is employing them. What is then the problem? Is it that the quality of education is not matching the needs of the industries? Or that the industries are not matching their job description to the education curriculum that is producing these (youth) graduates? This is a major crisis that has to be properly addressed if our education system is to support our national development.
For example, in the current system, colleges and universities produce industrial engineers who have never visited a manufacturing plant throughout their years in training. You have mechanical engineers who cannot identify a screwdriver in an auto garage. Surely, this is absurd! No national development can strive without a ready labor force to supply the necessary labor supply.
The education curriculum for any aspiring nation must carry two basic components. Firstly, an education curriculum that is purposefully designed to produce the necessary workforce to support national development, Secondly, an education curriculum that is formulated to train the youth to qualify as entrepreneurs and employers who create employment for other youths. This will not only create massive employment opportunities but equally boost the socioeconomic climate which is very essential for national development and upgrade the country’s status and ranking in international economic ranking. Here are some vivid examples of successful cases in African countries.
Rwanda has had its educated youths manufacture a smartphone called “Mara”in their factories. They made history by becoming the leading African smartphone manufacturer. The new Mara smartphone will boost the country’s ambitions to become a regional technology hub.
South Africa is the second African country to have in stock the Mara X and Mara Z smartphones. These success stories I strongly believe Ghana as a country can emulate so as to empower the youth through an education curriculum that focuses more on technical and technological studies.
Financial literacy is defined as one’s ability to understand financial concepts, plan one’s finances, and understand financial services and products. Financial literacy is correlated with more prudent financial decisions and the use of formal savings and insurance products (Xu and Zia 2012).
Many financial literacy programs target the youth. Even though children are in the financial umbrella of their parents, the hypothesis is simple: teaching financial literacy to children effectively impacts their understanding of financial concepts than teaching such skills later in life. It is equally recommended that some financial education programs for youth also include social values and other such material to mitigate unintended negative consequences.
Socially, the youth can impact national development through their technical know-how in communication. The youth engage socially and most are active in sports and entertainment, often taking them across borders to the international shores. They use these opportunities to attract their friends and associates into their country.
The foreign investors invest in Ghana through a relationship with the youths. Well-educated youth become great ambassadors and representatives of a nation that engages in arts and culture; equally attracting foreign trade and investment. Ghana is rich in arts and culture with booming trade in foreign investment. These serve as major income-generating sources for the country which improves the economy of the country as well as improving the intentional ranking of Ghana.
Parenthood is a role to play and as such anyone who assumes that role should strive for perfection. It is very much like getting a job in a company. You have to deliver your best and if you are not good enough you’re out! The job of parenting should not be shirked or done badly simply because there is no supervisor or
because parents are not getting paid for it! Children should also strive to be better, even in the worst of circumstances. I know this doesn’t sound easy, and things are easier said than done. But there are many stories of children who were brave and willing enough to affect the world around them despite their terrible family conditions. You do not need to have superpowers first.
And if the child cannot find the ideal role model he/she seeks in their homes, they can find it elsewhere; like a really good teacher or a fellow student with sound character. They can even turn to the Bible; Samuel, Isaac and especially Our Lord Jesus Christ were cherubic when they were children. It is overwhelmingly sad that many people have lost sight of the essence of the family these days (seriously I’m crying a river here!). In most families now it is the case of “Me, Myself and I”, or “To your tents oh Israel!” and so I would recommend that families should always strive towards the right path. They should acknowledge every situation that comes their way and make do with what life has to offer. The central theme is Love. Love is all that matters. If folks can heed these recommendations, nothing less than an ideal home environment would be established.
The Ghana primary school syllabus contains religion-related study programs for schools. These form the Religious and moral foundation, religious studies and the like which instils some form of discipline in students as they grow to become adults. Before children grow to their youthful ages these religious titbits remain in their minds. The study of these courses helps to curb social vices in the country since the main focus of these subjects is to point out rights and wrongs to channel the minds of people in the right direction with moral standards which are very essential, especially for the youth in every society. That said, social vices are curbed as a direct result of moral education provided to the youth in schools, and issues of theft, promiscuous living and other social vices are guarded against in the country. This often gets the attention of tourists and investors overseas to visit the country since the country is considered peaceful. Who wouldn’t want to tour a country full of peace and opportunities? When tourists visit and invest in the many beautiful things Ghana is endowed with, they leave the country with financial growth.
Psychologically, with a good education, the youth develop their mental and human capacity. They can appropriate the skills they acquire in training to the best use for their Individual lives and equally to the benefit of the community they live in. If the people are mentally healthy and educated it enables them to focus on personal development which in turn drives national development. A distracted mind is a distorted mind, thus, the need to stay physiologically sound to use their intellect to study, engage in research and discover projects geared towards developing and contributing to the improvement of the standard of living of Ghana.
Education is fundamental to human development, the same way human capacity is very essential to national development. It then follows that the quality of education is of paramount importance to ensure that the schools, colleges, universities etc., are producing the right calibre of youth capable of delivering and impacting the society positively and supporting national development. Little wonder one of our founding fathers Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the Republic of Ghana, made education his foremost agenda. When education is properly invested in, especially for the youth. The country reaps the benefits of a growing economy and robust national development.
Achebe, C. 2010. A British Protected Education, ‘Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature’. Penguin Modern Classics.
Addo-Fening, R. Gandhi and Nkrumah. 1972. A Study of Non-Violence and Non-cooperation Campaign in India and Ghana as an Anti-Colonial Strategy.
Dei, G. J. S. 2002. Schooling and Education in Ghana. International Review of Education September 2002, Volume 48, Issue 5,
Durkheim, E. 1956. Education and Sociology Simon and Schuster quotefancy.com
Nkrumah’s Education policies (1965-1966) as a tool for peacebuilding
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