The Ghana Education Service (GES) has launched the National Entrepreneurship Programme for Senior High Schools (NEP-SHS) to equip students with practical entrepreneurial skills and prepare them for self-employment after school.

The programme, introduced in partnership with Procus Ghana Limited, the parent company of KIVO Foods, is aimed at nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset among students before they complete their secondary education.

Launching the initiative in Accra last Thursday, the Deputy Director-General for Management Services at GES, Professor Smile Dzisi, described entrepreneurship education as critical to preparing students for the future.

She explained that the programme was conceived in response to rising youth unemployment and the need to instil entrepreneurial thinking in young people, irrespective of their academic backgrounds.

Professor Dzisi said the programme would go beyond classroom theory by exposing students to practical enterprise development, innovation, mentorship and business pitching throughout their primary and secondary education.

She emphasised that embedding entrepreneurship in the education system was key to raising a generation of self-reliant, creative and solution-oriented citizens.

The Coordinator for the NEP-SHS, Madam Bertha Amanor, said the programme was designed to address a pressing national challenge, citing research that showed a high rate of unemployment among young people.

She noted that about 23 per cent of Ghanaians aged between 15 and 24 were unemployed after school, with more than 750,000 actively seeking jobs.

Madam Amanor explained that the programme was not intended to push every student into business ownership, but rather to transform their mindset and equip them with skills to identify and seize opportunities.

She added that the pilot phase would end with a business pitching competition involving the three participating schools, where entrepreneurs would assess students’ ideas for possible investment.

The programme will run as a 10-month pilot in Achimota School, Wesley Grammar School and Accra STEM School.

She said the schools would deliver five structured entrepreneurship modules aimed at transforming students from job seekers into job creators through hands-on learning experiences.

According to her, students would receive training in enterprise development and innovation before presenting their business ideas at a competitive pitching session at the end of the programme.