The Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Samuel Kwame Offei, said going forward, their programmes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, would concentrate on creating the 21st century graduate, by focusing on critical and analytical thinking, entrepreneurship and intellectual development, and on making all their programmes more responsive to the needs of the country and industry.

“We need to work together to ensure that the youth are well trained and ready for modern work place by the time they leave school, and I am sure that all of us here today are committed to working to make sure that this does take place,” Prof Offei stated in his closing remarks at the end of the 69th Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYSC) in Accra.

“There is a critical need to focus more on education and training, as one of the surest ways of equipping our young people with the requisite skills for the world of work,” he said.

“There is the need for a comprehensive national re-assessment of skills development across the educational landscape that will insight the development of a skills development policy for the country,” Prof Offei added.

He noted that unemployment had economic, social and political consequences and every nation must ensure that their youth find jobs in the public or private sector, or be able to create their own jobs when they graduate.

He said the youth were a resource that needs to be fully harnessed to provide the critical ingredient for social cohesion and national development.

He also recounted that Dr Sam Jonah, the Executive Chairman of Jonah Capital, who delivered the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 69th ANYSC, had noted that “we cannot develop as a nation until we take bold decisions and act expeditiously to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive”

Prof Offei said: “When the private sector develops, jobs can be created to address the unemployment challenges facing the country”.

The Acting Provost of the College of Education, and the Dean of the School of Continuing and Distance Education at the University of Ghana, Michael Ayitey Tagoe, said one of the major objectives of the ANYSC was to shape public policy through the recommendations of the School.

He said one of the major outcomes of the 69th ANYSC had been the fact that Government alone could not create jobs; declaring that “The private sector must be seen to be leading the agenda of job creation in Ghana”.

Among the dignitaries who graced the closing ceremony was Professor Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, the immediate past Dean of the School of Continuing and Distance Education.

The event on the theme “Job Creation for Accelerated National Development: The Role of the Private Sector”, recorded an the participation of over 320 people, which is the highest ever over the past decade.

The ANYSC is organised annually by the School of Continuing and Distance Education, to provide a platform for a dispassionate discussion of important issues of national and international concern.

The week-long event was under the auspices of Komos Energy, Vodafone Ghana, Goil, Voltic, Daily Graphic, Prudential Bank and the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana.

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Source: GNA

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The data also indicated that, it may take up to 10 years for a large number of graduates to secure employment due to varied challenges that ranged from the lack of employable skills, unavailability of funding capital for entrepreneurship, poor attitudes of graduates towards job opportunities, as well as the low capacities of industry to absorb the huge numbers.

Mr Kofi Asare, an Education Consultant, who gave the surprising statistics at the 2017 MasterCard Foundation Annual Learning Summit in Accra, said this had greatly contributed to the ascendancy in graduate unemployment in the country.

[contextly_sidebar id=”WHCSLWPQlobfwr89XqkTCbBhLRoW0lgt”]The summit, on the theme: “Preparing students for employment and Entrepreneurship: What Works?” seeks to find sustainable solutions to the findings of some commissioned researches on the topic to develop a smooth transition and supportive programmes for graduate employment and entrepreneurship for all school leavers.

He said in the scope of transition, about 7000 pupils were enrolled at the basic levels of education each year after which only 350, 000 were able to progress to secondary levels and of these 65,000 were able to gain admission to pursue high education where as 60,000 would graduate from tertiary institutions.

Mr Asare said the situation called for critical attention and redress of both issues of school drop-outs and ensuring a smooth transition for those who were able to graduate at the various levels of their education.

In his recommendations, therefore, on a scoping study of Ghana’s educational system, Mr Asare urged government to ensure the strengthening of coordination of institutional interventions that were expected to provide transitional support to graduates.

He said there was the need for government to also provide reliable funding sources for students’ transit to employment interventions as none of the existing transition projects currently gave start-ups to fresh graduates, fearing about 90 per cent of such businesses may collapse before the end of their first year.

Mr Asare urged government to institute a national policy on internship where even graduate students on vacation could find something to do during their long vacations and gain some experiences rather than idling about.

He made other recommendations including the provision of incentives such as positive grants and tax reliefs by government for industry so that they could support the internship policy to train graduates for their smooth transition after school; ensure proper targeting of entrepreneurship programmes; and ensure transparency and fairness in managing transition interventions.

Mr Asare said although there were several transition programmes run under the various government institutions and agencies including the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the National Vocational and Technical Institute (NVTI), Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Youth Enterprises Support (Office of the President), and the Youth Employment Authority, they had not yielded the required maximum outcomes.

He said some of these programmes had not yielded much due to the lack of coordination and the virtual neglect of tertiary graduate transition in favour of that of junior high school leavers.

Mr Asare identified the politicisation of access to scholarship and other funding sources, the lack of statutory support for industrial partnerships, and the low level of institutional linkages among Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies with the Ghana Education Service as a huge impediment to the smooth transition of students.

Mr David Nkrumah-Boateng, the Head of Impact, Camfed Ghana, said graduate unemployment was not only becoming a national issue but a security threat and believed that the research would help inform policy directions for better development outcomes.

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Source: GNA

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According to him, it is worrying to have more schools yet majority of the graduates are unable to pursue higher education.

“Successive governments since independence have invested heavily in the expansion of places in schools, however, the increase in enrollment have not seen corresponding expansion in the supply of trained teachers and the supply of the needed resources to enable the schools to function efficiently,” he said.

He expressed worry that successive governments continue to credit their achievements in quality educational delivery in the number of schools built; rather than achievements on performance.

Michael Kenneth Nsowah was speaking at the first national conference of the University Teachers’ Association of Ghana (UTAG) at the University of Ghana on the theme, “The Quality of Manpower and Teaching at the Pre-Tertiary Level: Its Impact on University Education.”

He noted that, such qualitative assessment of education “is a phenomenon that was reminiscent of the emerging stage of colonialism” used to measure the level of development.

“…and this thing is continuing, we are fighting over ‘I built 20 schools, you built one school’ and this is taking us no where, because at the core of the whole educational enterprise is quality.”

Michael Nsowah opined that, the low investment and interest in qualitative issues in the primary education may be attributed to the fact that most research findings and reports that expose weaknesses in the educational system, are often ignored or defended to avoid embarrassment or criticism.

“Each year, when we talk about the failure of the candidates; BECE or WASSCE we sweep it under the carpet,” he said.

He said it was worrying that most Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) graduates fail in the core subjects, making it difficult for them to gain admission into secondary and tertiary institutions respectively.

‘Imbalance in infrastructure eroding quality education’

The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), recently cited inadequate funding as one of the main reasons for the erosion of quality education at all levels in Ghana.

A researcher at ISSER at the University of Ghana, Professor Jonathan Fletcher while presenting the institute’s report on the education sector indicated that governments have not been able to balance improved access with funding.

Professor Fletcher acknowledged that, the idea of improving access was commendable and necessary, but he also noted that, “we are not able to provide enough funding to improve infrastructure.”

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Presenting findings on ISSER’s latest report on the education sector at the University of Ghana today [Tuesday], a researcher at ISSER, Professor Jonathan Fletcher, indicated that governments have not been able to balance improved access with funding.

He recalled that, there were times at the secondary level where classes used to have about 35 pupils in a class, but now classes record as many as 80 or 90 students, following the emphasis of making education more accessible.

Professor Fletcher acknowledged that, the idea of improving access was commendable and necessary, but he also noted that, “we are not able to provide enough funding to improve infrastructure.”

He thus stated that, Ghana has basically been unable “to match the growth in access with growth in infrastructure. That is the basic thing. We are not resourcing education enough.”

“But we cannot stop people for accessing education because we don’t have enough resources and so we are spreading the resources thinly and therefore, we have so many people getting access but that is eroding quality,” the researcher added.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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