Ignatius Baffour Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, said Ghana must deepen Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to provide hands-on training for the youth to address unemployment.

He said TVET offered direct skills and knowledge to help one to become self-employed and create employment for others.

Persons who went through skills training only required start-up capital, but those who passed through the main academic system had to wait to be employed by institutions and organisations, he said.

”Germany has done it with TVET and they have been successful, therefore, if we want to be successful as a country this is the way to go” he said.

Mr Baffour Awuah made the call at the handing over ceremony of business start-up kits to more than 400 young entrepreneurs in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions, who successfully participated in the Business Idea Competition and the ‘Adwumaye’ short-term skills training in Sunyani.

It was organised by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation, under the German Development Cooperation, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

The competition was to empower young Ghanaian entrepreneurs and address the provision of essential business equipment to scale up businesses.

Mr Baffour Awuah explained that skilled work would continue to live with the people because TVET offered sustainable jobs and, therefore, commended the beneficiaries for choosing that path.

He advised the youth to be resilient and save towards the growth of their businesses to help make significant gains and expand them.

Mr Baffour Awuah said through the project, the beneficiaries would be mentored and their activities monitored by the Labour Commission and GIZ to assess their performance, while providing further assistance in terms of coaching until they became matured to be on their own.

Madam Grace Bennett, an entrepreneur and chairperson of the programme, said the Government alone could not provide jobs for the large numbers of unemployed youth, hence self-employment was the reliable answer to the challenge.

“Many young people are deprived, disadvantaged and marginalised and could not afford the basic business necessities and, thus, start-up capital to begin a simple enterprise was very important to them,” she said.

She said young trainees needed to be provided with innovative financing mechanisms with stringent technical backing, effective supervision and monitoring to enhance their work.