Harnessing the Power of the Youth Through National Youth Policies in Ghana: Challenges to Notions of Empowerment

Abstract

While Africa has the largest cohort of young people, and governments acknowledge that they are an important human resource with the potential to contribute significantly to national development, little effort has gone into harnessing its most abundant asset. Confronted with unemployment, limited access to opportunities to further education, limited space for political participation and participation in the decision-making process, many are questioning the genuineness of national youth policies which are supposed to empower the youth. In the 21st century, where emphasis is placed on knowledge-economy, what the youth need today are lifelong learning opportunities such as widening access to further education to produce young people prepared to meet the challenges of today and the future. If empowerment is about agency and opportunity structure, and education and our educational institutions are there to create the environment for the youth to become empowered, then policy-makers need to incorporate service-learning and entrepreneurship education into the educational system to help students develop critical and problem-solving skills — interpersonal and communication, and civic skills and dispositions, and also promote employability of young people.

Keywords: youth, empowerment, policy, agency, education, development