Ghana needs disciplined youth with proactive behaviour

Kumasi, March 14, GNA – Mr. Boniface Abubakar Saddique, Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, has stated that the nation needs a well-disciplined youth with very proactive behaviour to move it forward.
       He said this essential requirement becomes a challenge for stakeholders, more especially partners in youth development to adopt strategies to shape the youth in a manner to facilitate achievement of national development goals.
       Mr Saddique was speaking at the opening of the Ashanti region second cycle Students' Representative Council (SRC) 10th anniversary and Students' Week celebration in Kumasi on Tuesday.
       The celebration is under the theme, "A Decade of Students' Activism and Advocacy – A Retrospective and Prospective Look".
       He said the best part of anybody's life is his or her youthful age and therefore if any government fails to empower and develop its youth, the future indeed is bleak for the nation.
       The Minister said it was against this background that the government formulated a national youth policy in 1999.
       Mr Saddique indicated that the incident of drug addiction, alcoholism, immoral sexual behaviour in the wake of HIV/AIDS, indecent dressing and other social vices have been identified as the main causes of indiscipline which had engulfed the society. "Some of our young people are wayward, disrespectful and often show complete disregard to authority.
       Their actions and behaviour towards adults is nothing to write home about and it is high time all hands be on deck to control our youth and guide them along the road of good morals before they get out of hand", the Minister said.
       "The time has come for positive steps to be taken to arrest this unfortunate dilemma in which the youth find themselves and to propel them forward into life of hope, confidence and focus", he added.
       Mrs Eunice Appiah-Nkansah, Vice-Principal of Kumasi Technical Institute (KTI), advised the students to use dialogue but not violence in finding solutions to their problems to enhance effective teaching and learning in schools.
      She hoped the celebration would provide access to information and arouse students' interests, patriotism, commitment and active participation for a positive change in students' activism and advocacy since those qualities constituted the master keys for effective nation building.
      In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Osei Assibey Antwi, Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister, called for effective establishment of Counselling and Guidance Units in schools to facilitate effective addressing of students' problems.
       He called on the students to work assiduously and aim high at all levels in their lives.
       Mr John A. Amidini, West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) controller in-charge of Ashanti and Mr Vincent Ankamah-Lomotey, Deputy Registrar, General Administration at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), spoke on the topic "The Hullabaloo, WASSCE Grading System in Focus".
     They asked the students to read wide to broaden their horizon and to contact educational authorities whenever they were confronted with problems.
14 March 07