According to him, there were available jobs within the maritime sector and young people who studied maritime related courses and training would be guaranteed immediate employment.

“The youth must focus on maritime related courses and training to get into the maritime sector as it provides ready jobs after graduation,” he stated in an interview with the Ghanaian Times on Wednesday in Accra.

Though, other courses could be essential and provide solutions to some developmental challenges, he said the maritime sector had become very attractive, required a lot of personnel to drive the sector and Ghanaian youth must take advantage of the opportunities.

He explained that sea transport remained one of the cheapest means of transferring commodi­ties from one country to the other with vessels, offering a lot of job opportunities to qualified person to get on board.

RMU, the premium maritime education institution in Ghana he said, had positioned itself to provide the needed support to the youth to acquire the needed skills and be gainfully employed after graduation.

The government he added, must also support the RMU to con­tinuously deliver its mandate of providing quality education to the youth from member countries and providing employment opportuni­ties after graduation.

“Government and stakeholders should concentrate more on the maritime education as a lot could be done especially with employ­ment of the youth and subse­quently providing solutions to the current economic challenges,” he stated.

For example, he said the mar­itime and safety security centre linked directly to the Ghana Mar­itime Authority (GMA) provided opportunities for the youth to receive training and get onboard.

“These programmes can be picked by the government and conduct mass training for youth and send them out to sea. They could get into agreements with some vessels for Ghanaians to onboard those ships and be em­ployed,” he recommended.

“There is always the need for personnel and the government could take opportunity to provide skills and employment for the youth,” he added.

He said, RMU graduates from member countries including the Gambia, Liberia, Cameroon and Sierra Leone had utilised the opportunities available to train experts including Chief Pilots, Captains and Habour Masters who were currently part of the Board of Governors.

“Perhaps, the host nation Ghana could utilise the opportunities more and train young people to help change the economic fortunes of the country for the better,” he stressed.

He commended the GMA for engaging in initiatives to attract the youth into the sector and urged other institutions to replicate such efforts.

“There is an easy way to prog­ress on the professional ladder after graduating from the RMU as efforts had been made over the years to secure jobs for graduates with collaborations within and out­side the country,” he stressed.