The National Youth Policy, a document intended to direct opportunities, welfare, and development for youth, is unfamiliar to many young people in Ghana.
Nearly five years after the policy’s introduction, a nationwide poll by Youth Placement for Employability Solutions (Y-PES Ghana) found that over 91% of Ghanaian youth are ignorant of its existence.
Many kids who took part in Y-PES Ghana’s leadership development program for school prefects in the Upper West Region were surprised by the results.
“I realised we don’t even know what government has put in place for us as young people,” stated Madi Latifatu, the Wa Senior High School Girls Prefect.
“If we are not aware, how can we demand accountability or benefit from it,?” she said.
Only 8.8% of respondents to the poll, which included over 2,000 youth from all 16 regions of Ghana, knew anything about the National Youth Policy.
According to Mumuni Sulemanna, Executive Director of Y-PES Ghana, the findings showed a concerning gap between youth and the policies intended to influence their destiny.
He stated “The youth are ignorant of their rights, not privileges, the policy exists to support and empower them, but many of them do not even know it exists.”
He asserts that the study, which took almost a year to complete, collected opinions from young people nationwide via an internet survey.
Student leaders from a variety of second-cycle institutions, such as Wa Senior High School, Wa Secondary Technical School, Jamiat Islamic Girls SHS, St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary, and Senior Victory College, listened intently as facilitators went over the main points of the policy during the leadership training program.
Some of them had never heard of a national framework for youth development before.
“I think copies of the policy should be given to students in schools,” stated
St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary’s school prefect is Shadrach Mwintir Dery.
“Young people need to understand the opportunities and responsibilities outlined in it.”
Sulemanna urged the National Youth Authority (NYA) and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to step up sensitisation initiatives, blaming the low level of awareness on insufficient public education.
Additionally, he called on the government to provide the District Assemblies Common Fund’s five percent allotment, which is intended for the NYA to promote youth-focused initiatives.
He feels that practical empowerment should take precedence over awareness in youth development.
He emphasised, “The youth need skills, leadership training, entrepreneurship support, and opportunities to realise their potential.”
The conversation opened many of the program’s students’ eyes and served as a reminder that policies are only effective when the people for whom they are intended are aware of them.
Source: newsthemegh.com