Need for the youth to participate in solving issues – NYA
Ms Esther Amba Numaba Cobbah, Chairperson of the National Youth Authority (NYA), on Friday called on the youth to participate in solving issues affecting them by developing their potentials and taking innovative measures to undertake productive work.
She noted that although the economy was growing at a phenomenal rate of 23 per cent, there was still a high level of youth unemployment.
Ms Cobbah made the call at a Strategic Future Leaders public lecture on the theme: “The Critical Role of the Legislature and Policy Development Institutions in Ensuring Accelerated Sustainable Development of the African Youth in a World of Science, Technology and Innovation” in Accra.
It was organised by the Foundation for Future Leaders International, an Accra-based NGO.
She expressed concern that not even good education was a guarantee for obtaining a job, but programmes such as seminars for the youth should be organised to enable them to understand their potentials.
Ms Cobbah observed that Ghana was blessed with great talents of the youth which needed to be explored globally for their services to be utilised by investors.
She pointed out that it was the responsibility of the authorities to effectively communicate the realities of life to the youth for them to appreciate.
“Those who want to influence the youth should provide the appropriate information and depending on how the information is packaged and put across, there may be a higher or lower likelihood of success in achieving the intended outcome,” she added.
Ms Cobbah called on stakeholders to support the NYA to mobilize and improve on the affairs of the youth towards achieving national development and finding a lasting solution to them.
She pointed out that the youth could become effective leaders in future only when they were prepared to learn through humility, and their formal education firmly secured in their training.
Mr Emmanuel Dei-Tumi Chief Executive Officer of the Future Leaders Group expressed concern about the changes in Ghana’s educational policy, which had transformed the senior high school system from four years to three years.
He noted that matters that revolved around the youth and their future should be depoliticized and must go beyond political interference, and called for a paradigm change into the educational future of the youth.
He called for the infusion of a more transformative paradigm change in the policy direction towards the development of the youth on the continent.
Source: GNA