Tema, July 6, GNA - The recent national registration exercise of unemployed persons conducted by the Ministry of Manpower, Development and Employment (MDE) has revealed that most people lacked the necessary education and skills training for productivity. It also revealed that most of the poor people in the country were working in the informal sector and were essentially engaged in unproductive ventures taking poor remuneration, with women constituting the majority.

Mr John Yaw Amankrah, Director for Research, Statistics and Vocational Training at the MDE announced this at the 8th graduation ceremony of the Global Training Institute (GTI) at Tema on Sunday at which 12 students passed out after training in dressmaking, catering and decoration after a three-year course. According to Mr Amankrah, within the next four years one million young men and women within ages 15 and 24 "would be entering the Ghanaian labour market after acquiring training skills"

Speaking on the topic "The essence of vocational and employable skills," he said it was in the area that vocational and employable skills came into play and the Ministry was actively involved in the pursuit of strategies and programmes to enhance the skills of the youth and employable opportunities in small enterprises. This would be carried out under the Skills Training and Employment Placement (STEP) programme "with the view of turning such jobs into sustainable sources of security and livelihood for themselves and their families."

He said developments in the global competitive market and the granting of African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA) status for Ghanaian firms had compelling needs for skills development and the MDE was seriously considering providing skills training to entrepreneurs in the informal sector to enable them to improve upon the quality of their products. The ministry, he said would place emphasis on such ingredients as relevance, quality and sustainability on its skills training programmes to ensure that they impact positively on poverty reduction. In a speech read for her, Ms Christine Churcher, Minister of State in charge of Primary, Secondary and Girl Child Education urged the youth, particularly girls to add value to their knowledge by furthering their education in order to make them marketable and be gainful employed.