Youth employment and entrepreneurial skills development in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District of Ghana

Abstract

In order for the people of a country or district to achieve their individual aspirations and collectively contribute toward development they need to be entrepreneurial. This requires some form of training and education in order to develop the relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes requisite for meaningful employment. Using descriptive statistics, this paper examines the links between unemployment situation and youth enterprise in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District (AEED) in the Central Region, one of the four poorest administrative regions of Ghana. It found that majority of the youth had at most secondary education, and were unemployed, under-employed or self-employed in informal micro-enterprises. Though entrepreneurial opportunities existed in the District, the youth were adequately involved in the requisite entrepreneurship training programmes that would enable them to take advantage of the existing opportunities in order to reduce youth unemployment or under-employment. It concludes that though the youth have entrepreneurial potentials, their low educational attainment has been a challenge to training. It has therefore been suggested that the District Assembly encourages training and educational institutions that incorporate entrepreneurship in their curriculum in order to provide trainees with the needed knowledge, skills and competencies for employment.

KEY WORDS: Entrepreneurial skills, education and training, youth employment, micro-enterprise development, community development