Minister for Youth Development and Empowerment, George Opare Addo, has expressed concern over the rising youth unemployment rate despite improvements in education attainment among young people.
Delivering the maiden State of the Youth Address on Wednesday, November 5, Mr. Opare Addo revealed that although literacy and access to education have improved significantly between 2015 and 2024, unemployment among young people continues to climb.
“Unemployment has moved from 16% to over 22.8%. So, it looks like we are not doing something right,” he said.
He noted that while bachelor degree attainment rose from 5.2 % to 9.1 % and secondary education completion increased from 23 % to 37.4%, the job market has not kept pace with these gains.
“If you look at the two data I just gave, where we can create real jobs is rather declining. Where the jobs are not there, I call it grammar education. Where we all struggle to find space, that is where it looks like Africa,” Mr. Opare Addo said.
He further stressed that government must “begin to shift focus and begin to look at TVET more seriously,” adding that technical and vocational education dropped from 2.5 percent in 2015 to 1 percent in 2024, a worrying signal for real job creation.
The minister called for stronger reforms in technical and vocational training to make it more appealing and relevant to industry needs, warning that Ghana’s economic growth risks being “jobless” if such gaps persist.
