Mr Ernest Attuquaye Armah, Deputy Minister of Communication, on Friday advised graduates of Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) to work hard and be honest to improve their skills for higher prospects in future.

He noted that, hard work was key to the survival of any organisation therefore, government was keen to take every opportunity to create a talent pipeline to ensure continuous flow of Information and Communication Technology skills workforce.

Mr Armah gave the advice at the graduation of 150 youth trained by ITES Work Readiness Programme under the Ministry of Communication in collaboration with Ghana Telecom University College in Accra.

He said the ITES Work Readiness Programme was funded by Rockefeller Foundation from the United States to impact on the lives of the poor and vulnerable youth under its Poverty Reduction programme, through the Information and Digital Employment initiative.

Mr Armah said government was committed to position itself as the preferred destination of IT-enabled services in the sub-Sahara region of Africa and beyond.

He said the initiative would create opportunities for sustainable employment among the youth and become principal in providing information based high-quality services to organisations.

Mr Armah observed that the programme would equip the youth with the needed skills in the digitisation of manual records of government and business.

Mr Alhassan Umar, Chief Executive Officer of ITES, said graduates from the programme were employed by contract by some selected Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies, to digitise manual records for State agencies.

He noted that, Rockefeller Foundation's goal was to build resilience to enhance individual and institutional capacity to survive and promote growth with equity to support the poor and the vulnerable in the society.

Mr Umar urged the graduates to be disciplined in their fields of work and strive to attain higher laurels by upgrading their knowledge for a better future.

Ms Victoria Lamptey, Head of Centre for Professional Development, said the programme started in February 2012 to provide hands-on training to ensure that the trainees were fully prepared to start work immediately.

She said the programme involved both theory and practical training and introduction to the BPO environment, Microsoft Office, Scanning and Digitisation, Entrepreneurial Skills, Time Management and Communication Skills.**