By Patrick Ofoe Nudzi
Accra, Oct. 26, GNA – Many Senior High Schools do not have formal career guidance systems to place students on career paths.
The few that have such systems, do not have trained counsellors, Mr Eric Saforo, Team Lead, Innovation and Skills for Youth Opportunity and Transformation in Africa (YOTA), a non-governmental organisation with a focus on youth development, has observed.
He said the situation was a contributing factor to youth unemployment in the country.
The Team Lead said that many young people ventured into fields that had fewer or no opportunities.
“One factor important to skill development is career guidance in various fields. There is a lot to be done because we have few opportunities for internships and formal apprenticeships.”
He said this at the launch of the Youth Employment and Skills (YES) Chapter of the Pan African Coalition for Transformation (PACT), organized by YOTA and the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET).
He said gender stereotyping had also discouraged many females from venturing into male-dominated career fields, adding that guidance and counselling were the best approaches to get them into such fields.
Mr Saforo said the challenge was evident in research conducted in 2017 in six African countries – Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cote D’Ivoire, Niger and Ghana, where it was found that secondary education systems were failing.
He said youth unemployment was high and as of 2021, it was 17 per cent, higher than the overall average for all ages and ” out of the 200, 000 youth that enters the labour market yearly, only 10 per cent find any meaningful formal jobs”.
Madam Mona Iddrissu, Head, of Youth Employment and Skills, ACET, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said, one key issue that was found in the research across the countries was the disconnect between the private sector and education curriculum.
“We are developing curricula that are not centred around what the industry needs. For the SHS level, we must be involving the private sector,” she said.
Madam Iddrissu said an SHS graduate should have employable skills before tertiary education and the objective was to influence policy and bridge the gap.
The YES-PACT chapter is an extensive knowledge-sharing network that will offer support for designing and implementing transformation strategies to address youth unemployment and skills deficit.
The chapter will operate on two levels – country and regional
GNA