The National Youth Authority (NYA) has marked the 2019 International Youth Day in Wa with a clarion call on the youth to rise up and play a crucial role in the provision of quality education in the country.

The event was commemorated with the fourth sitting of the Upper West Regional Youth Parliament, which saw leadership of the youth parliaments across the 11 Municipalities and Districts debating the theme: “Quality Education Delivery in the Upper West Region; the Role of the Youth”.

Mr Archibald Donkor Jnr., the Upper West Regional Director of NYA in a short address congratulated the youth of the region for their active participation in the socio-economic development of the region and country at large.

“This day has been set aside by the United Nations General Assembly to celebrate and honour our youth for their commitment and sacrifice towards national and global development”, he said.

He noted that there were several initiatives by the government targeted at developing the capacity of the youth for the future and that the youth must justify that investment by actively participating and contributing to overall national development.

In view of this, Mr Donkor made a passionate appeal to the youth parliamentarians to endeavor to support in building the capacity of the youth in their various communities to enable them to contribute to the development of their localities and the nation at large.

Mr Amidu Chinnia Issahaku, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister noted that they were witnessing more young people actively participating in politics and local level governance in the region and influencing change at all levels.

“Children of today are the future of tomorrow and we must all support their proper training so that they can become responsible citizens in the future” he said.

For him, the benefits of the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy far outweighed the few challenges happening as a result of the increase in enrollment.

The Deputy Minister noted that government was, however, putting in measures to resolve few challenges that would bring to an end the double-track system which was introduced to cater for the increasing numbers.

Mr Justine Kpan, Upper West Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Ghana Education Service (GES) noted that there was too much talk about the mismatch between industry and academia – people pursue programmes that have little bearing on industrial demands.

He said the Ministry of Education has decided to put in a few checks and balances including; the review of the education curriculum to ensure that education that was being provided to the youth of the country was comparable to any other across the globe.

Mr Kpan indicated that the results-based curriculum was reviewed to a standard based curriculum which would soon witness another review to project-based curriculum to prepare students to apply what they learned in class to provide solutions to practical problems outside of the classroom.

He said teachers from Kindergarten to Primary six would from 13th August to first week of September 2019, receive training on the new standard-based curriculum, adding emphatically that any teacher that failed to take part in this training would not be assigned a class to teach.

The International Youth Day is being celebrated globally to promote increase awareness and recognition of the youth as critical agents of positive change and development.