Ghana’s Unemployment Problem, A National Security Threat

The unemployment predicament won’t end anytime soon, but will continue getting worse, especially with the current leadership of ours. Young people must realize that the days of finishing school and getting jobs or a jobs waiting for you are over.

In recent memory, former president MAHAMA was quoted as saying that, “young people need to start thinking about entrepreneurship in other words creating their own jobs”, and he was called, “an incompetent man”.

Just couple of years ago, Old Mr. Yaw Osafo Manfo and white outfits-looking finance minister Mr. Ken Ofori Atta made same statement that, “young people must start creating their own jobs”.

They also went ahead to say that, “there are no jobs”. But it was the same time they were giving jobs to their own children at ExinBank Ghana formerly known as “EDIF”, and other institutions. It’s indeed surprising I don’t hear the Ghanaian people call this president and his whole administration “incompetent”.

Now we are harshly faced with unemployment. But yet, institutions keep producing graduates. Young people in Africa as a whole are yet to see the light.

Africans still have not realized that the institutions that keep producing graduates every year are money making institutions, they are profit making institutions just like financial institutions, and it’s one of the reasons why government, institutions and heads of institutions won’t tell and encourage young people to learn trade.

At this point, the school system must be honest and bold enough to tell parents and graduates to start thinking about creating their own jobs and letting parents know that, the days of jobs waiting for graduates are over.

Now, I sincerely think graduates don’t need a whole 4 years to be studying some of the courses in our universities. It’s a waste of life using 4 whole years to study a course only to finish and won’t find a job.

The school system must understand that some of the courses today are of no relevance. The school system must start to run courses that are skilled courses to prepare students establish themselves even in situations where they have no jobs.

As a matter of fact, Ghana is producing over 510,000 graduates every year from Senior High School-University level and only about 7-10 percent of these graduates find jobs who are mostly skilled trained graduates.

Ghana, a country of over 32 million population that produces over 510,000 graduates every year but yet public sector workers are not even up to 1 million of the total country population. This is not only worrying, but it’s also dangerous for our continuous growth and stability. This is a threat to our country and security if proper measures are not taken to address the challenges of unemployment.

Written by
Sulley Kone
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