Junior Achievers Trust International (JATI) has begun a nationwide training seminar to equip students in selected second cycle institutions with entrepreneurial skills and to help them to seize opportunities in their respective environment.
Speaking at a day's seminar at Ordorgorno Senior High School (SHS) in the Greater Accra, Mr Paul Cliford Yeboah, Chief Executive Officer of JATI, said considering the developmental challenges facing the country there was the need to imbue students with the entrepreneurial skills of creativity, risk-taking and foresightedness to enable them take charge of the future.
He said it was time the youth were given the needed support to generate entrepreneurial ideas to exploit the many opportunities in the society to solve perennial problems of unemployment and poverty.
Applying entrepreneurial skills in relevant areas is the only way for students to justify the huge investment their parents made in their educational pursuit, said Mr Yeboah, adding that parents borrow to take care of students with the hope of reaping profits after their school, but many of these students finish without being able to engage themselves in meaningful work because of the lack of ideas.
The Very Reverend Ama Afo-Blay, former Director-General of Ghana Education Service, told the participating students to use their time judiciously and also to avoid making unnecessary mistakes saying "you are not created by mistake; you are unique for a particular purpose, discover and exploit it".
She appealed to the students to develop the attitude of doing things in a unique way to surpass what others had already done adding that societal good should always rein supreme over individualistic interest.
Mr Andy Honu, a facilitator and Head of Policy Holder Service Department, State Insurance Company Life, told the students that setting objectives that were specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound was the sure way of succeeding in business.
He explained that setting goals served as the master key to success, opening and unlocking doors to unleash energy for attaining goals.
Mr Honu said the background of a person does not determine success and therefore asked the students to disregard whatever background they were coming from to discover and build on ideas since the world was built on ideas.
He told the students to do deliberate search to uncover their talents and use them to turn problems in the society to opportunities for national good.
He said there was the need as young entrepreneurs to do self-assessment to discover the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the environment in order to take advantage of the situation.
Mr Honu said as young entrepreneurs develop entrepreneurial skills for national development, see problems as opportunities and think about alternative ways of doing things.
Mr Kofi Sarpong of Unique Floral, who shared his experience with the participating students, said they should not often look up to government for employment but explore the environment to seize opportunities available.
Students from Tema Methodist Day, Ordorgorno and Nungua SHSs representing Greater Accra were taking through career development and entrepreneurship, financial literacy topics.
The training would be scaled up in the Central, Brong Ahafo, Northern and Easter Regions subsequently.