Government Must Address the Concerns of the Youth – Ali Tante Roberts of Youth Alliance for Development

GOVERNMENT MUST ADDRESS CONCERNS OF THE YOUTH!
His Excellency the President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, on Thursday 16th February 2012 presented his fourth state of the nation address in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution to Parliament. In the address, the President gave thumbs up to his government for its handling of the economy, security, agriculture, health, corruption and a host of other thematic areas. In a nutshell, the President gave a good account of how the government has performed in the various sectors of the economy.
As has been the tradition, the State of the Nation address has generated the usual partisan debates, with the ruling NDC party hailing it as the best address ever, whiles those in the minority has slammed the speech as being unimpressive and uninspiring.
The Youth Alliance for Development wishes to commend government for its performance in handling the national economy. That single digit inflation has been sustained for the longest period in the nation’s history is ample testimony of the government’s expert handling of the economy.
While commending government, we wish to draw the attention of His Excellency the President to an obvious omission in this year’s address. Youth development and gender were obviously missing from the address. Considering that the youth form the most sustainable development base of the country, we cannot gloss over the fact that challenges confronting the youth were glaringly missing.
Currently, the youth are confronted with so many challenges, among which are education and health. We find it unacceptable that about 50 percent of our Junior High School graduates do not continue their education beyond the JHS.
We call on government to immediately take steps to correct this anomaly in our educational system to save many more of our youth from an uncertain future. We suggest that those who are not able to make the transition to Senior High School are located and placed in technical and vocational, whiles those bent on learning trades are also placed in skill development centers. We do acknowledge that the Local Enterprise and Skills Development Programme (LESDEP) has been established by government as a way of addressing these problems, it is our considered opinion that this programme has still not been well grounded enough to be useful to the youth at this stage of our development.
Furthermore, we call on government to immediately suspend the Capitation Programme being implemented as part of the National Health Insurance Scheme in the Ashanti Region. The continuous implementation of this programme is recipe for the erosion of the gains made in the health status of the people occasioned by the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme. We note with sadness, the decision by private medical practitioners in the Ashanti Region to suspend the health insurance scheme. This decision will not augur well for the development of the people, particularly vulnerable groups like children, youth, elderly people, women and persons with disability.
Finally, government must undertake a deliberate, well thought through policy of employment generation in all sectors of the economy. The freeze on public sector employment should be lifted so that school graduates who wish to serve their country can have the opportunity to do so.
Signed:
Ali Tanti Robert
(Executive Director)

This post has already been read 846 times!