Two out of every three Guyanese are below the age of 35. There are over one hundred and fifty-five thousand young people in this country but, despite their large numbers, the problems facing many of them have been underrated and remain unresolved. In fact, youth unemployment was estimated at 26 per cent but those ‘…not in employment, education or training’ – NEET – were estimated at 35.9 per cent for males and 45.6 per cent for females and has its gravest impact in the villages on the coastland and in the hinterland.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – pointed out that unemployment is the most pernicious problem facing young school-leavers. Young adults who do not complete their primary and secondary education satisfactorily will find it difficult to secure gainful employment as adults. Young university graduates who are unable to find equitable employment, because they are inexperienced and have a long wait before they find their first job, tend to emigrate.
Education is an essential element in employment, empowerment and equality and should be the principal pillar on which a state’s youth policy should be built. The Public Education System, however, is producing an increasing number of illiterate and innumerate young people. Failure rates at the National Grade Six Assessment examinations and at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate in mathematics and in English are abominable.
Mr. Granger lamented the People’s Progressive Party Civic administration’s policy of deliberate destruction of the Guyana National Service, the Guyana Youth Corps and the Bertram Collins College for the Public Service – institutions that were essential to providing young people with life skills. The Administration’s decision to substitute the hastily conceived, part-time ‘National Pathway Workers Programme’ that pays young people a paltry $40, 000 per month is execrable and could surely lead to lifelong servility, subservience and sycophancy.
Evidence suggests, also, that the that about 6,000 young people drop out of the Public Education System’s primary, secondary, technical and vocational institutions every year. School dropouts, unsurprisingly, are susceptible to unemployment and entrapment in anti-social behaviour that can cause alarm or distress to others. The consequence has been that the youth imprisonment rate has risen to over 1,600 out or 64 per cent of a prison population of about 2,250. Several other young people are detained at the Juvenile Center in Sophia and the New Opportunity Corps at Onderneeming.
Mr. Granger insisted that empowering young people to recognise and respond to problems can help them to develop a common vision and sense of belonging to the community. Programmes that are developed in partnership with young people and that involve them in making decisions that affect them increase the possibility that the projects will be accepted, adopted and adhered to as part of their everyday lives.
The former President iterated the self-evident fact that young people, unavoidably, are the country’s future. They are essential to ensuring effective governance of the nation, regions, neighbourhoods and communities. Their problems cannot be ignored without risking the country’s development. The future belongs to its young people who should be allowed to live in a safe society which protects their rights and recognises their potential. Young people should be in school, in sport or at work. They should not be in jail. 󠄀
