By Kwame Akyeampong, Senior policy analyst, Education for All Global Monitoring Report
Ghana, which aims to becom
e a middle income country by 2020, continues to receive praise from the international media for its impressive progress. As a Ghanaian who analyses education, I wondered if this progress was offering better educational and work opportunities for disadvantaged youth.
I took the opportunity of a recent trip to the country’s Northern region to see for myself.
After all, what better way to judge efforts to improve Ghanaians’ welfare than to look at whether its most vulnerable and disadvantaged youth are getting education that leads to decent jobs? Indeed, education, skills and jobs have become hot political topics in the run-up to the general election in December.
I was also struck by another debate in Ghana – among young people asking how to ensure education offers a gateway to a prosperous future.
This debate is vital for the numerous poor youth, most of whom are young women living in northern Ghana, who have not benefited from education – as many as 8 in 10 poor 17-22 year old women in Northern Ghana had less than four years of education in 2008.
I travelled to Northern Ghana to see first-hand how Camfed, an international NGO, was providing opportunities for disadvantaged young women to make a better transition from school to work. Camfed was providing financial literacy and business training, as well as seed money grants and innovation bursaries, to young women to kick start their own businesses right after secondary school.
I came face to face with Suowah (above), who spoke passionately about how her life and that of her immediate family had been transformed as a result of training she had received to install solar panels in homes – training that she wished formal secondary education had provided. Suowah was earning a decent income from her work, and for her, this was really an example of how education can be put to work, by linking it more closely to work opportunities in her environment.
This encounter set me thinking – if Ghana’s development is to be judged successful, shouldn’t we be asking what it is doing for the disadvantaged rural youth up and down the country? On my way back to Paris, I realised that the best way to judge education’s worth really is to ask if it is giving young people a real chance to make a better future through decent work.
Our responsibility to young people includes not only providing a decent formal education, but also offering work experience during school, and schemes for school leavers that offer assistance to find work or begin a small business.
Ghana’s current progress does offer the promise of brighter, more prosperous future – but only if it invests in its most marginalized and disadvantaged youth to create a more equal society.
I like the idea of the work opportunity throughout schooling to provide an opportunity for most of these young women to be able to progress in the workforce or give them an opportunity for small business. Workplace experience sets a great stand to allow practical application to ensure that the women are even physically able to perform the job. In addition, it provides financial opportunity to built on existing business opportunities or future ones.
I agree, Anne that the scheme of helping youth to get a better job once they leave the school shall go through work opportunities through schooling. Schools- be it secondary or high schools, should provide a chance for trainees to receive hands on experience with the subject they deal with. Though it may not look feasible with all subjects, I believe it is all about creativity our educators can bring in when thinking where knowledge received will be utilised and so find an appropriate place to apply knowledge already while studying by working.
I quite agree with both of you,Anne and Julie.I t affords them the opportunity to raise their financial status thereby enhancing their existing opportunities in business in the future.