Reverend Wilson Emmanuel Ashigbie, the Presbytery Chairman of the Ho Presbytery of the Global Evangelical Church on Thursday said the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) and such programmes meant to solve the country’s unemployment were only begging the problem.
Reverend Ashiegbie who was opening the 2011 Ho Presbytery Conference of the Global Evangelical Presbyterian Church said the programmes were not addressing the root causes of unemployment.
The conference was on the theme, “That none should perish.”
He said the problem called for a pragmatic audit into the practicality and relevance of the nation’s educational system because, “a grown crooked tree is difficult to straighten.”
Reverend Ashiegbie advised the Ministry of Education to ensure that the right foundation was given to children from infancy to guarantee a new generation of job creators to replace the present
generation of job seekers.
He said that way youth employment programmes would not be needed
Reverend Ashiegbie also advised that education be strategically directed to inculcate work and the desire to render service in
children from infancy irrespective of parentage, placement or economic status.
“Education should not be directed to only literacy and numeracy but also, more importantly to the child’s ability to identify and
explore productive opportunities around to produce goods and services which users will pay for and unemployment be taken by the horn”, he
said.
Reverend Ashiegbie commended government for some social interventions such as the National Health Insurance Scheme.
On the theme, he noted that Christianity as a way of life was gradually but surely losing its evangelizing mission and taking on the
pleasantries of the world.
He said the youth especially had almost totally traded highly cherished Christian values for “what modernity and civilization are
offering them.”
Reverend Ashiegbie thus tasked all Christians to intensify
evangelism wherever they found themselves.
Mr Joseph Amenowode, Volta Regional Minister said most cases of
unemployment were “self-inflicted.”
He explained that many people were unemployed because they were too choosy in the kind of work they wanted to do.
“We need teachers but many of our young people want banking jobs, even those who do not have that qualification,” Mr Amenowode added.
He catalogued some achievements of government in the region and the country at large and called for prayers and support for the
government so it could deliver on all its promises.
Mr Amenowode commended the Church for championing many socio-economic development projects especially in the areas of
education and health and tasked the Church to spearhead the agenda for moral and social transformation in the country.
He urged the Church to continue to uphold the truth and be transparent in order to win the confidence of society.