By Predicting: “Graduate unemployment to go up” [Please Refer To Ghanaweb General News of Monday, 12 September 2011; Source: Joy Online]

By Otchere Darko

[*Readers who are not sure about this writer and get confused about his name and identity may please read the information placed at the bottom of this article.]

I could forgive whoever made the prediction in quote, if the person was not the Vice Chancellor of Ghana’s premier university.

But having come from such an important member of the academia and from one who is part of those who plan university intakes, this sour statement of prophecy compels me to question the competence of our university authorities and all other Ghanaians who play various parts in the planning of higher education in Ghana. The funniest bit of Professor Aryeetey’s prediction is his passing of blame on others, rather than putting the blame on people like himself.

This celebrated member of the “brains of Ghana” is reported to have said: “There are two sides to the problem, we supply labour, somebody has to demand the labour. You are not going to deal with the problem by looking only at the supply side, the supply side is what we (the universities) deal with; somebody else has to concern himself or herself with the demand side, and it includes not just the government, (but) also the private sector.”

Why produce and supply something for which there is no demand, Professor Aryeetey? Unemployed graduates in Ghana could be spared the wasting of their money and time, if university authorities and the ministry of education could plan the supply side of education such that the numbers of those who emerge from the various fields of higher education and other levels of learning closely tally with the numbers of staffing needs of various employers, including the government and the private sectors. If University CEOs can be so abysmally disappointing, where is the hope for mother Ghana?

Source: Otchere Darko; [Personal Political Views].

*About the Author:

[This appendage is for the information of only readers who get confused about this particular writer because of the name he uses, and who therefore need to know more about him or about the name he uses. Ignore this appendage, if you are not one of such readers. *This writer is just one of hundreds, and possibly thousands of Ghanaians who use the name “Otchere Darko”, either on its own, or in combination with other names. Some users spell this same name as “Okyere Darko”, while other users conjoin it with the help of a hyphen to become one single compound name, “Otchere-Darko” or “Okyere-Darko”, depending on which spelling-mode they choose. This writer, who has officially used this ‘simple name’ from his school days in the sixties into the seventies and continues to use it officially to this very day, attended the School of Administration of University of Ghana where he finally left in September 1977, the year that students embarked on the “UNIGOV” demonstration. He has never before, or after September 1977 been a student of the Ghana Law School. Up to the end of 1981, he worked as a senior public servant in, and for one of the mainstream Ministries in Ghana. He is not working for, and has never worked at the Danquah Institute. He is currently also not a member of NPP, or of any other party in Ghana. He is not related to any practising Ghanaian politician who uses this same or other name. *May readers concerned, please, take note of this exhaustive clarification and stop drawing wrong conclusions that sometimes lead them to attack a wrong person. Thank you for taking note.