We need to teach entrepreneurship as a core subject in schools – Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has stated that the private sector has the capacity to absorb the country’s throngs of unemployed youth.
According to him, while a thriving public sector can produce some jobs, the government’s primary goal is to establish an atmosphere that allows entrepreneurs to thrive in the private sector.
Even the most efficient government service, he claimed, cannot replace the role that the private sector and entrepreneurship play in helping to answer concerns about the country’s economic fortunes.
“Orienting our people, that it lies within our own hands to innovate, develop technologies and solutions that make our society better off, as against waiting for an expansion of the public sector to accommodate all our interests, is a challenge which however we have not met very well as a nation.
“If entrepreneurship, private business, innovation and technology is what will be a most significant pillar in economic recovery, then our best energies, our best attention, must be directed there,” Mr Nkrumah made this remark at the opening ceremony of Day-2 of the B&FT Ghana Economic Forum (GEF) underway in Accra.
He said that entrepreneurship is the most important tool for getting the majority of people, particularly the young, economically engaged and rewarded, thus necessitating a shift in thinking and encouraging the youth to pursue it and take advantage of the government’s beneficial policies.
The Information Minister also stated that, if handled seriously, entrepreneurship will help the country to develop its own products and services, hence increasing exports and improving the economy’s balance of payment condition.
Mr Nkrumah made some proposals, saying that discussions about entrepreneurship, its prospects, removing its obstacles, and showcasing its benefits should be mainstreamed as one of the country’s most essential topics.
He urged that public discourse in traditional and digital media, as well as on all other platforms, should reflect citizens’ perceptions of the most crucial value driver for economic transformation.
The Minister stressed “We cannot spend all our times discussing allegations and suspicions of one another. We cannot spend all our time comparing pastors, debating partisan political positions, and for the younger ones, we cannot spend all our time amplifying social media beefs and expect that entrepreneurship will gain its pride of place”.
He went on to say that in order to instil entrepreneurship in the brains of young people, the educational system should integrate entrepreneurship into the curriculum at all levels of education.
“Whatever we choose to include in academic curricular, one field of academic work which I believe should now be taught across all levels of education as a core subject just like literacy, numeracy and science, is entrepreneurship. So that no matter what else a Ghanaian child has studied, he/she is also equipped with the basic orientation to use that technical knowledge even in building on their own, a business out of it.
“I believe we all can agree that looking at the enormity of the challenge ahead, we need to quadruple our efforts as a country at the minimum. We need to provide avenues for more technical support, patient capital and paradigm orientation if truly we want to see more young people take up entrepreneurship. Government policy must be bolder and larger and more focused in support of growing entrepreneurship in Ghana and indeed across the continent,” he charged.
Source: Richard Mensah Adonu | Join our Telegram Group
