The idea of the two-year internship with businesses is to equip the youth with work experience and skills that employers need in the world of work.

The Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Pius Enam Hadzide, who disclosed this at a youth entrepreneurship workshop for 84 interns in Accra last Wednesday, indicated that between 5,000 and 6,000 young graduates would benefit from the programme.

Lack of experience

Mr Hadzide explained that very often, when fresh graduates from tertiary institutions applied for jobs, they were rejected for lack of experience. The two-year internship is, therefore, aimed at closing the gap between institutions and industry.

The deputy minister said under the Graduate Internship Model, the beneficiaries would be exposed to agribusiness, as well as other skills that would enable them to either be retained at their workplaces or establish their own employment.

He said until recently, the youth programme concentrated only on carpentry, masonry, needlework, basket weaving and wiring but the economic situation had changed and those trades were no longer responsive to current needs.

Agribusiness development

Mr Hadzide explained that in the current economic situation agribusinesses and training in agri-business development were responsive.

He said what held back youth programmes in the country in the past was the lack of funds, explaining that the National Youth Authority (NYA) was last year resourced with only $ 500,000. According to him, the story had changed and an amount of GH¢70 million had been allocated to the Authority this year for youth capacity building that would enable them to fit into the world of work.

He added that available data suggested that no region in the world had been able to industrialise without a transformation of its agricultural sector.

Accelerated growth

Mr Hadzide said the agricultural sector provided employment for about 70 per cent of the population in the country and held the key to accelerated growth, diversification and job creation for the youth.

 As a result, he said, all the youth training institutes of the Ministry of Youth and Sports were being retooled to shift emphasis from wiring and other crafts that had ceased to provide employment for the youth to agribusiness that was now in vogue and has the capacity to create jobs.

Plant products

 The Executive Director of Agribusiness in Sustainable Natural African Plant Products (ASNAPP), Mr Dan Acquaye,  explained that agribusiness was not about cutlass and hoe alone but encompassed cultivation, harvesting and marketing which farmers alone could not handle.

He said, for example, that employment opportunities existed in the poultry industry where the country consumed around 240 million birds but could produce only about 10 million birds annually.