Rev. Dr. Mensah, who is an economist said apart from making monies available for the youth as start-up as contained in the 2022 budget, government must strengthen the technical base of the country for many to develop the interest in manufacturing and industries.
Rev. Dr. Mensah stated at the eighth: “End of Month Stakeholder Engagement and Workers Appreciation Day,” seminar organized by the Ghana News Agency Tema Office which is a platform rolled-out for state and non-state actors to address national issues.
The event also served as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters towards national development in general and growth and promotion of the Tema GNA as the industrial news hub.
Speaking on the topic: “Increment of Policy Rate by Bank of Ghana – What are the implications? Rev. Dr. Mensah said currently there was a gap between academia and industries as most graduates only knew the theories without the practical knowledge and therefore called on government to develop modules that would bridge the vacuum.
He also called for the modification of technical schools into industrial educational institutions, which would help attract more youth into that sector and would also change people’s perception of technical and vocational training being the reserve of school dropouts.
He said developing that sector into industrial education would enable the country to develop at the fastest rate as more people would have skills that would help them establish some small and medium scale businesses.
The economist said such persons would then employ others who would have been left unemployed after school completion and that would not only reduce unemployment, but would also provide government with more revenue as they would pay taxes to the state.
Rev. Dr. Mensah, said: “Research shows that once someone completes engineering or other technical and vocational training, they would not wait for government to employ them, but will rather create job avenues for themselves and others”.
Mr Francis Ameyibor, the Tema Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency admonished public institutions to work with credible media institutions to curb the spread of fake news.
“A credible practitioner from a credible media institution whether you gave him or her honorarium popularly known as “soli” or not, they are under obligation to do the story because the programme was booked and it was expected of the assigned journalist to produce a news story.
“There is no way an assigned journalist will return to the newsroom from assignment and refuse to write a news story because he or she was not given soli or write the story through the lenses and influence of soli”.
Mr Ameyibor therefore urged event organisers to scrutinize the identity of people who showed up at their events as media practitioners, “let’s work together to raise the professional status of journalism”.
GNA