Koforidua, Sept 11, GNA - Dr Charles Brempong-Yeboah, a Deputy Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, says for the new education reforms to be beneficial to national development, efforts must focus on addressing the deep structural deficiencies in the current education system.

He said the current education system, which was based on reforms implemented since the 1980s, had failed in generating creativity and entrepreneurial fervour that was necessary is job creation. Dr Brempong-Yeboah was speaking at a graduation ceremony to mark the end of 12 months training trades for 100 people under the Skills Training and Employment Placement Programme (STEP) run by the GRATIS Foundation at Koforidua on Friday.

Drumming up support for the new education reforms rolled out by the NPP administration, the Deputy Minister said it could no longer be accepted that "our educational institutions continue to churn out large numbers of youth without any jobs as they lack the necessary skills." The STEP programme, he explained, was embedded in the poverty reduction agenda of the government and its thrust was giving training in trades plus a micro-finance support schedule that was expected to be used by recipients as a start-up capital to enable them start their own businesses.

Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the government, through such skills training programme, was shifting from a policy of welfares to empowering the youth through the provision of training in demand-driven skills to make them employable and also to enable them start their own businesses.

In an address read for him, Mr. Kwabena Dankyi Darfour, Chief Executive Officer of GRATIS Foundation, said the Foundation was prepared to provide individuals with appropriate technologies, equipment and skills that would enable them increase their productivity and invariably their incomes.