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| Some of the beneficiaries of the YEA skills training programme |
The government has graduated 10,000 youth trained in various vocations under the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) and commissioned them with packs of tools and equipment to start their businesses.
They are the first batch of 20,000 young people to be trained through a six-month intensive skills acquisition in various vocations.
The trainees went through accelerated apprenticeship training in hairdressing, plumbing, auto mechanics, plaster of Paris (POP) ceiling work, painting and general electricals.
Other areas are tiling, decoration, aluminium fabrication, steel work and welding, among others.
At the graduation ceremony in the Bono East regional capital, Techiman, yesterday, the Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, with the assistance of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah; the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of YEA, Kofi Baah Agyepong, and others presented boxes of tools, equipment and other accompaniments, also known as starter packs, to enable them to start businesses on their own.
The Vice-President also launched the second phase of the YEA skills training programme to engage another 10,000 people.
During the training, which started earlier this year, each beneficiary received GH¢500 monthly allowance during the six-month training period. The rationale behind the YEA was to offer the graduates decent jobs and reduce unemployment among the youth.
Rationale
The initiative, which is one of the several programmes launched in 2019, is targeted at reducing unemployment and boosting the economy.
Dr Bawumia, who is also the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), said the government had paid critical attention to entrepreneurship and training of artisans to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth for which reason the government was very interested in YEA programmes.
He said the next NPP government would train one million youth in digital skills, and added that such skills would help the Ghanaian youth to stay in the country but also work in other countries.
Dr Bawumia said through the YEA, the government had also instituted a programme for female porters, popularly known as kayayei, which had provided them with accommodation and training in vocational skills.
He said the government had planned to train 5,000 kayayei before the end of the year to provide them with decent jobs. Dr Bawumia said if he was elected President, he would invest heavily in YEA to expand its activities to enable the organisation to create more jobs.
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