The youth should strive for greater height despite national challenge

Accra, July 8, GNA – Mr. Alfred Vanderpuije, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive on Wednesday challenged the youth to strive for greater heights despite the national, institutional and personal challenges they face in life.

He admitted that many a times, the youth wanted to persevere but are tempted to give up and urged them to look beyond the immediate circumstances and carry on.

“The challenges are enormous but that should not be an excuse to be out of school”, Mr. Vanderpuije stressed.

Speaking at the 13th graduation ceremony of Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) on the theme, “Vocational Education and Training in Ghana Today- Prospects and Challenges of the Youth”

Mr. Vanderpuije said there must be a collective responsibility among parents, governments and institutions to change the trend of having more youth on the streets than in school by providing more vocational training opportunities to make them productive citizens.

He said YWCA, Ghana has been assisting the government of Ghana in the past 50 years in her commitment to provide vocational education and training for young women and men.

Mr. Vanderpuije assured them that with their skills in secretarial, home management and dressmaking they have joined the productive citizens in the society therefore much would be expected of them to boost the economy of the country.

Ms. Esther Owusu, National General Secretary of YWCA blamed the decrease in the enrollment in vocational schools in the private universities which seem to have relaxed entry requirements.

Ms. Owusu said the school was faced with the challenge of inadequate facilities, computers, modern books for their library and completion of its building project and therefore appealed to parents to live up to their responsibility to enable the school to meet its expectations of quality training for their wards.

She urged the students to learn to apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired to the world of work and hope that they would live up to their expectations.

She said six men graduated this year with four graduating in home management and two in graduating in dressmaking.

The graduation was a joint ceremony of three years groups with a total of 312 students.

YWCA is a non governmental Christian organization affiliated to the world YWCA in Geneva, Switzerland which enhances the roles of socio-economic benefit of women and girls by empowering them for self-employment and leadership skills in the society.

GNA