Global Patterns of Youth Development and the Key Challenge for Sustainable Growth - A Stake Issue of the 21st Century: The Nigerian Experience

Abstract

This paper focused on global patterns in youth development and accounted for the variant experience in the developed and developing societies using the Nigerian experience. Global patterns in youth development are varied in developed and developing economies of the world. Developmental consideration affecting the youth of today are broad based: educational, material, health care, socio-cultural, political, socio-economic, emotional and psychological. These variants shape the attitudes, behaviour, measure of self-confidence, mental development, economic independence and the reservoir of knowledge, which enhances the resourcefulness and versatility of today’s youth. When these indices are missing or incomplete of a high degree in a youth, underdevelopment becomes an apt word in describing the state of the youth. This paper is both descriptive and empirical and the researcher reflected on the key developmental problems facing the youth in Nigeria. As a result of the emphasis placed on the global patterns of youth development, the researcher accounted for the indices of youth development in a concise manner as much as possible using 40 students in the Cross River University of Technology as a study. The study concluded that enormous contributions to education, social welfare and economic development must be provided through adequate resource management and allocation. These activities necessarily expose the youth population to winds of change from the outside world. Rigid political structures should be abolished and self-interest banished if our youths must take over the older generation in piloting the affairs of our developing societies.

Keywords: Technical Education, Apprenticeship, mentorship, job creation, skill acquisition sustainable development, specialized skill, productive.