SYNOPSIS
The University of Ghana Students’ Representative Council (UG-SRC) Skill-UP for Jobs Bootcamp is an experiential training and exposure programme designed to train, inspire and equip students with job creation skills.
The UG-SRC Skill-UP Bootcamp will be a weekend programme over a one month duration comprising in-person practical skills sessions. The sessions will focus on sequential employability skills in selected disciplines. Participants will be coached to apply and showcase the acquired skill in micro-projects at the end of the training as a prototype on proof of concepts.
The participants will receive mentoring support on their microprojects from experts in industry. Each participant is expected to commit 8 hours per weekend during the one-month programme to achieve meaningful impact.
The bootcamp training programme will be climaxed with a skills for Job Summit, where students will have the opportunity to ask questions from industry experts on the skills needed for jobs of the future. Skills for job trainers from industry will be invited to exhibit for students to appreciate their services and training at first hand.
THE RATIONAL
One of the pressing socio-economic challenges facing emerging economies including Ghana, is the persistent high rate of youth unemployment and underemployment. The World Bank in 2020 indicated that Ghana is faced with 12% youth unemployment and more than 50% underemployment, which are both higher than the overall unemployment rates in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There is an increasing annual population of trained manpower from the tertiary institutions but their training in the formal education programs has not been aligned with skills development initiatives in the context of a
fast-changing labour market. Tertiary graduates are unable to adapt to emerging technology and practical skill requirements for jobs and employability opportunities.
Data from the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, has revealed that only 10% of graduates find jobs after their first year of completing school. The data further indicated that it may take up to 10 years for a large number of graduates to secure employmentdue to varied challenges that ranged from employability skills, funding capital for entrepreneurship, attitudes of graduates towards job opportunities, as well as the low capacities of industry to absorb the huge numbers.