Ghana and Africa at large need more than book knowledge to enhance their development status and create jobs for the youth. Africa has extreme poverty issues due to a lack of skills training.
To actualize building the youth capacity in skills training, ‘SAWBO-LAUREATE’ has organized a seminar at the University of Ghana-Legon with the aim of creating awareness of the initiative to cause social change in the mentality of Ghanaian entrepreneurs.
The Seminar with the theme: “21st Century Skills for 21st Jobs” distributed laptops to some graduates from the Laureate initiative for extensive training to develop their communities.
According to Professor James Owusu, the Chief Executive Officer, of the Leyden Educational Consultancy in London, this program aim is to build youth’s capacity in building computer literacy skills for community development.
It is critical for a developing country like Ghana to develop the youth in entrepreneurial skills for community development.
Prof. Owusu said the distribution of the laptops among the youth is to enhance their computer literacy skills and empower the youth within their community so that they can be effective and as well make impact in their community.
“The models on the laptops would aid in empowering women and anybody interested in entrepreneurial skills. Basically, the rationale behind the Laureate training is to create jobs for the youth with these three models; entrepreneurial, Skills development, and leadership”, Prof added.
Bewailing the educational system in Ghana and Africa and Africa as a continent, Prof. said the educational system does not produce innovators, inventors, and graduates who can solve the problem in the communities. Therefore, the institutions should be strategic to produce graduates to solve issues in the communities.
Answering the question of whether the Laureate initiative can fund participants who are handicapped, Professor James explained that current negotiations are ongoing with an organization in Holland to support the beneficiaries who want to start their businesses.
Speaking to Agric Today Media, Professor Samuel Amoa Mensah, Country Director CLCD-SAWBO Sub-Saharan Africa project Supervisor lauded the USA and UK for the funding support to make the research and the project possible.
Prof. Amoa Mensah mentioned that effective supervision is very critical to enhance the successful completion of a project hence the aim of the training. “So at Laureate, we train experts and in turn, we let these experts affect their communities differently while we supervise their projects to know their achievements”.
He advised the youth to be researchers in order to be abreast with the right information to be able to compete with the global discourse without lacking behind.
“For over the period, African Centre for Business Incubation (ACeBI) has been part of the TVET sector skill body, and we have engaged in a number of sector skills gap analysis projects, so it is obvious that there are jobs but there are not enough skills to handle those jobs, hence the importance of this training to the youth”, Dr. Christian Sewordor Mensah, executive Director of African Center for Business Incubation said.
He mentioned that to attain the skills and knowledge derive from I.T, this partnership with the superior partners from the Scientific Animations Without Boarders (SAWBO) from Leyden Educational Consultancy in the UK and with other benevolent organizations that support education especially Human Capital Development is necessary.
“We are privileged to have our very own Professor James Owusu donating laptops to these beneficiaries and the essence is that the world has been taken over by I.T. and most of the things we engage in are I.T and internet based. So, with this donation it is important the knowledge gained from this training goes down to the various communities for other individuals to benefit and that is the brain behind this seminar”, Dr. Sewordor Mensah explained.
“A number of people have been trained and certificated by the Laureate initiative. So with this, it is expected that going back to our various social enterprises or community, we are going to extend this knowledge to the youth who will pick up this training with the modules uploaded on the laptops. Most especially in a competency or data world era today, these gadgets will aid everyone who is a beneficiary to expand their businesses, to train on the business, and to continue to develop themselves in this direction. There is going to be continuous professional development in all aspects of the human capital growth”, he added.
Response from the beneficiaries
Mr. Michael Odenkey Quaye, the Assistant Lecturer, Department of Agriculture at the University of Education Winneba lauded the impact of the training as a tool to empower the agriculture students at his institution.
The focus is to empower the students to be initiative after hard days on campus, therefore, this training with the models would empower the students to be entrepreneurs but not job seekers.
“I shall utilize the models on the laptops to empower my students to reach out to their potential everywhere they find themselves. As a lecturer I entreat the students to translate the theory to practical form”, he said.
Mr. Roger Akanbisik a PhD student from the Laureate program explained that even though the training is the maiden edition, it has equipped him with new knowledge and skills that would aid in training several youth in the communities, and some targeted churches in the communities.
He appealed to the organizers to organise such training periodically to equip them with new technological ideas, innovations, and models to be able to add value to the lives of the youth in the various communities. Generally, this initiative is a good one and if training is held every three months for us the participants, it will help several people hence reducing unemployment in the communities.”
