The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has called for opportunities to be made available for the youth to enable them unleash their potentials and prove their capabilities.
He indicated the need for barriers to the successes of the youth in the country’s educational system to be removed to usher them into becoming professionals capable of handling different facets of the economy.
“We have to remove barriers. We cannot put barriers in the way of the youth. Remove barriers for them, give them the opportunity to prove to themselves that they are capable, hold their hands, motivate them,” he added.
Dr Adutwum was speaking at the ongoing National Education Week on the theme“Reassessing Educational Policies for Effective Service Delivery and National Transformation,” in Accra yesterday.
He noted that it was imperative for the country to create an educational system that was second to none, and believed that was possible considering the investments being made in the country by the government.
“We need to look at what we are doing well, what we need to improve upon and how we can position the Ghanaian education system to become the best in the world,” he stated.
“We have to look at the example of Vietnam– they came out of war, now they are competing with the education system in Europe. Vietnam is producing 100, 000 engineers a year but they are 90 million. Thus, three times our population,” he added.
Dr Adutwum said the country should be producing about 33,000 engineers a year but was currently producing 6,500 engineers.
“That is not good enough for Ghana. Ghana is a nation with greatness in its name and history and therefore we need to do better than what we are doing,” he added.
The Education Minister underscored that the country had better days ahead for which reason an educational system that could transform the fortunes of the country was required.
“So when you hear me talk about education, you hear me talk about it with a sense of urgency that we cannot sit here in the next 60 years and not have a transformed economy because we did not innovate enough,” he said.
“What we need to do is to create the opportunity for students to improve upon the courses they are taking and help them in areas they are not doing well. And once they can prove themselves worthy, nothing can stop them from becoming innovative and imaginative professionals,” he added.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR