Unemployment is a major issue in developing countries and most governments in Africa continue to struggle with solutions.
Getting support to address this issue therefore becomes crucial for some African governments who are in dire need of solutions to fulfill the aspirations of their citizens.
In Ghana, under the regional program Employment for Sustainable Development in Africa (E4D) the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is implementing on behalf of the German Government and in partnership with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and SAMSUNG GROUP a project called the ‘Female Professionals in Electronics’ (FPE).
It’s an innovative module according to these agencies which will increase the number of female professionals in the electronics sector by training up to 100 female graduates in electronics per annum.
This will boost the ratio of female electronic professional in Ghana from about 4% in 2013 to approximately 30% in 2017.
For over three years young girls between as young as 16 will receive lessons in Mathematics and other essential lessons in electronics from their facilitators to be able to work on Mobile Phones, Laptops among other electrical gadgets.
One of the girls at the Accra Girls Vocational School in Ghana’s capital said the program “has been good because when I was in the house, I didn’t know much about electronics, people use to say that electronics is for guys but when I came into the system, I know that electronics is not only for guys but for ladies and ladies can do better. I can do a lot, water alarm, I can even do rain detector and also extension board.”
Another student said “To be frank with you when we were not here, we didn’t know how to even do soldering fix components on PC board, but through this we have been to know this and we have even done a display.”
The head of the program for sustainable economic development at the GIZ office in Ghana, Christian Widmann explained that the program will significantly aid Ghana in resourcing its young people to secure jobs.
“We want to see that both boys and girls get a very good training especially those in the informal sector because you have to see that eighty to ninety percent of the Ghanaian economy is informal economy so people get jobs usually in informal sector. So we want to see that as much as possible after such trainings get a good job but its also about the Ghanaian economy that the companies become competitive, more productive,” he added.
A technical adviser at the GIZ and the focal person for this program, Afi Agbenyo said the feedback from industries where these girls go for internship has shown that the program is making much impact.
We did impact assessment for example of their internship and we had tremendous attitudinal change, because apart from the skills that they are getting, they have become more assertive, their dreams are becoming more larger with the skills that they have,” She said
Funding of the program so far is coming from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and SAMSUNG GROUP, however there are hopes the Ghana’s government in the near future could take up the responsibility and expand the module.
Source: Africafeeds.com /Isaac Kaledzi
