A research published by the Youth Forward Learning Partnership shows what could possibly be the reason why numerous government interventions have not worked over the years.
The report titled “Aspirations matter: what young people in Ghana think about work” according to the researchers, “explores the aspirations of young people in rural and urban Ghana, to understand their aspirations and how they are formed, and what this means for youth employment programming and policy”.
What is evident from the 36-paged report is that government policy has over the years ignored a key component of success, i.e. aspirations.
People who grow up in poverty are normally at a mental disadvantage when it comes to setting goals for their lives. Their goals are either too low or too high based on a lack of or the inadequacy of opportunities and role models to guide them to more realistic and decent outcomes.
The goal of the research was to find the missing link between these two; the aspirations that are formed as a result of poverty and youth employment programmes and policies.
It was clear that many young people do not engage social interventions or employment programmes because those programmes normally do not take into account what these young people’s dreams are and so the disconnect between the dreams of the targets of such policies and the intended purpose of the policies makes it impossible for policy makers to get through to their targets.
“Despite the importance of aspirations, employment programmes – which seek to provide young people with skills and attributes to access the economic opportunities needed to achieve higher living standards than are the norm in their communities – are all too often designed only on the basis of economic growth forecasts and analyses of skills gaps. The fact that young people do not see their aspirations reflected by or fulfilled in the training programmes on offer may be why some of these programmes receive a lukewarm reception among the young people they target.” the report said.
The researchers found out that “young people’s primary concerns about work reflect the paucity of work opportunities available to them and the difficulty of achieving even the basic markers of adulthood.”
This is instructively true for many young people in Ghana who even after finishing university will have to struggle for years before finding a job.
“Many rely on a variety of odd jobs and ad hoc opportunities to earn a living and are frustrated by the fact that much of their productive time is spent looking for work, rather than working.”
Another thing that should get the attention of policy makers is the fact that due to the lack of decent, well-paying jobs, the research discovered that many young people tend to only settle for opportunities that will provide them with the most financial reward inadvertently to make up for all the years they had to spend looking for the opportunity in the first place.
This may explain the endemic corruption in our institutions.
Recommendations by researchers
- Most young people prioritise earning potential and flexibility over the type of work when looking for training and employment opportunities. Recruitment drives should focus on the earning potential and flexibility (or lack thereof) of different trades.
- Young people’s desire to earn money quickly and continuously should not be dismissed as impatience or laziness; many have considerable financial responsibilities and are unable to rely on their family for support. To ease these pressures, policies and programmes should facilitate young people’s access to financing for education and training, as well as other investments, and support them to continue paid work while training.
- Training programmes should include guidance on personal financial planning, including for old age, and incorporate goals and transferable skills that are not limited to one single employment sector.
- Young people need to be encouraged to think about their future in a way that is both realistic and stretches them. This includes teaching how to break larger goals down, the ability to identify training opportunities, setting goals and planning for the longer term.
- Bearing in mind the importance of the aspirations window, people who are just a little more successful than their peers, rather than very successful individuals, might prove the most effective mentors for young people.
- In physically demanding sectors such as construction, employment programmes should illustrate routes into other, more sedentary jobs within those sectors to allay young people’s fears about the viability of this work longer term and persuade them to take up a career in this area.
- The issue of gender is important, with many young people being held back by gender norms around what constitutes appropriate work. Employers and employment programmes should also help to ensure that women are able to provide for themselves when they are pregnant, and there is also need for a national discussion around the safety of women in the workplace
The Youth Forward initiative is a partnership led by the Mastercard Foundation, the Overseas Development Institute, Global Communities, Solidaridad, NCBA CLUSA and GOAL. Its focus is to link young people to quality employment or to starting their own businesses in the agriculture and construction sectors in Ghana and Uganda. The Youth Forward Learning Partnership works across the initiative to develop an evidence-informed understanding of the needs of young people in Ghana and Uganda, and how the programme can best meet those needs. The Learning Partnership is led by the Overseas Development Institute in the UK, in partnership with Development Research and Training in Uganda and Participatory Development Associates in Ghana.
The research was led by Ethel Seiwaa Boateng, Youth Forward’s Learning Partnership Coordinator in Ghana at Participatory Development Associates Ltd and Alexandra Löwe, Youth Forward’s Learning Partnership Applied Research Lead and Research Fellow in the Overseas Development Institute’s Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme.
