Government Committed To Youth Development
January 11The out-going Minister for Youth and Sports, Ms. Akua Sena Dansua, has expressed government’s determination to resolving major challenges that have for long confronted the youth.
This, she said, it is government’s recognition to the fact that, without requisite investment in the youth, there cannot be meaningful development.
She made these comments at the opening of the 62nd New Year School of the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education of the University of Ghana at Legon which opened in Accra today
This year’s annual school is on the theme, “Harnessing the Power of the Youth for Accelerated Development”.
It is with the view to address the problem of high level of drop-out in schools among others in the youth, that several strategies, including the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), were introduced, She added.
Ms. Dansua added that, though the NYEP has sustainability challenges, government is addressing them to make the programme more efficient, effective, sustainable and more responsive to the needs of the unemployed youth.
She observed that government is committed to ensuring that the dignity of the Ghanaian youth is restored and re-inculcate in them, the spirit of volunteerism and patriotism, infusing in them the spirit of political tolerance and decorum while imbibing a responsibility to ensure a stable and developed nation to be inherited by them.
She expressed the optimism that at the end of the deliberations, very good recommendations and action plans will be birthed that will facilitate government’s efforts of developing the youth.
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Kwesi Yankah, on his part, said that the youth are often a bundle of energy, vibrant and ever ready to listen and learn and in several parts of the world, they have been effective catalyst for social change when mentored.
Yet the occasional perversion of youthful energies in several parts of the world, Ghana included, may have succeeded in equating youthful exuberant with purposeless violence and irresponsible behaviour, he added.
He, therefore, urged government to be interested in capacity building processes that channel idle hands of the youth to more productive endeavours for an accelerated socio-economic development.
