Perceptions of National Service Personnel and Youth Unemployment: Could Entrepreneurship Education and Curricula Rationalization be the Solution?

Abstract

Youth unemployment has been a global challenge for several decades bedeviling several nations whether developed, developing or undeveloped. In Ghana graduate unemployment has been a major socio-economic challenge facing the country. About 300,000 young graduates enter the labour market every year with less than 6,000 (3%) getting formal employment. It is also believed that only two out of ten graduates who complete national service[1] every year get employed in the formal sector. Whilst these statistics may be very alarming, many young graduates still hold the notion that it is the responsibility of the state to provide for their economic needs and expect the government to employ them. Using mixed methods of survey and interviews, data were collected from national service personnel who participated in a training workshop on entrepreneurship. Findings reveal that there is lack of knowledge of the needed skills the job market requires and a wide disparity between what graduates are exposed to during their undergraduate training and the demands of the labour market. This paper argues that there is the need to introduce courses/programmes that would reduce the incongruence between the expectations of industry and what tertiary institutions offer, and that entrepreneurship education should be mainstreamed into the entire educational structure to heighten the creativity spirit in students. The paper concludes that without governmental and private sector support to training institutions as well as collaboration between key stakeholders in ensuring relevance and the required linkages between training providers and users, solving the unemployment challenge in the medium to long term may be far-fetched.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, education, youth, graduate unemployment

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-30-07

Publication date:October 31^st 2019

[1] National Service – Ghanaian students who graduate from accredited tertiary institutions are required under law to do a one-year national service to the country.