Ghana over the years has been battling with an increasing rate of graduate unemployment despite several intervention by succeeding governments, especially under the Fourth Republican dispensation.
The national youth employment program, the recently introduced Nation Builders corps and many others have all failed to address this challenge since they rather concentrate on curing the symptoms instead of confronting graduate unemployment itself.
Although several reasons may account for this seeming irresolvable albatross on the neck of Ghana, the few which readily come to mind include; increase in the number of tertiary institutions, increase number of graduates in the humanities, inadequacy of funds to enable government hire and pay graduates, fear of ballooning the public wage bill which could affect allocations to other state agencies.
A cursory glance at the above reason may paint a picture of doom and gloom on the minds of many Ghanaian graduates as to their future.
However, there are dozens of options available to the state for consideration if it deems them worth considering.
I humbly submit what I choose to call a three pin approach as a way of finding a permanent solution to cure graduate unemployment in Ghana .
Firstly, Government must as a matter of importance setup and equip mini workshops at all public basic Schools to equip pupils with technical and technological skills to enable them setup their own businesses after school.
Secondly, government through the ministry of education must introduce entrepreneurship as a compulsory subject at the senior high school and also setup well equipped entrepreneurship training centers on the campuses of all public senior high schools across the country to train Students on entrepreneurship to enable them start their own businesses with support from an entrepreneurship development fund to be put in place by the state with support from the private sector to finance entrepreneurship projects. If implemented well, this could create more job opportunities for young people in the country and also bring in more revenue into the state coffers.
Lastly, Government must introduce enterprenuereship as a compulsory course in all public tertiary institutions with well equipped enterprenuereship centers to train Students. Government through the National Accreditation Board , National Council for tertiary Education , UTAG and Forum of vice Chancellors should ensure that a review is instituted to empower tertiary institutions to convert final year projects undertaken by undergraduate students into business plans worthy of implementation for funding by the Enterprenuereship Development Fund to create job opportunities for the teaming unemployed graduates who keeping competing for limited job opportunities in the public sector . Aside dealing with the national security posed by unemployed graduates to the country ,it will also double if not triple the revenue accrued the state since more people will be paying taxes to the state.
Written by : Alhassan M.A Fatawu