President of the Ghana Technology University College (GTUC), Dr. Osei K. Darkwa has challenged tertiary institutions in Ghana and across the African continent to train their students in entrepreneurship.

This, according to Dr. Darkwa, will help produce graduates who can create jobs for themselves and others instead of relying on governments and players in the private sector for jobs, which are mostly non-existent.

He made the call on Friday in Accra at the 5th graduation ceremony of Academic City College, formerly known as Sikkim Manipal University (SMU), an Indian Long Distance learning institution.

The ceremony was held at the College of Physicians and Surgeons under the theme: ‘Challenges for the youth graduating from tertiary institutions in an emerging global economy.’

A total of about 300 students, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, graduated after pursuing three disciplines in Journalism and Mass Communication, Business Administration and Information Communication Technology (ICT).

According to Dr. Darkwa, who delivered the keynote address on the occasion, graduate unemployment remains one of the critical challenges confronting the Ghanaian and indeed African youth of the 21st century.

He argued that “this is mainly because over the years, the economy has failed to generate sufficient employment outlets. Fact is, public sector employment opportunities have diminished while the private sector has experienced relatively slow growth rate.

“The slow economic growth being experienced in Ghana, corruption, nepotism and demand for experience by potential employers are additional challenges confronting our graduands,” he said.

However, he indicated that there were sectors in the national economy that were recording steady growth but noted that such sectors were equally short of workers.

He stressed the need for institutions to design academic entrepreneurial programmes to provide the requisite skills that will better serve the needs of industry and make Ghanaian and indeed African students more competitive on the global space.

Invest In ICT

The President of GTUC also tasked African leaders and learning institutions operating in the sub-region to consider boosting their investments to promote Information Communication Technology (ICT) learning.

Explaining further, he said “Ghana needs to embark on an aggressive journey to build a solid national foundation by strengthening the use of ICT in nation building strategies.

According to him, achieving the country’s educational objective would require an expanded and enriched educational system that can provide the skilled workers, the technicians and the professionals that Ghana and indeed the African continent will need to compete in the world economy successfully.

Minister of Education, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman, in a speech read on her behalf at the ceremony, admitted that graduate unemployment remains a major challenge for many governments around the world.

“Unemployment has been a major problem in Ghana over the decades, the most worrying of which is graduate unemployment,” she added.