We are producing graduates we don’t need’ – Dep. Minister

A deputy Minister of Education in charge of pre-tertiary education, Alex Kyeremeh is worried at the rate the country is producing graduates for nonexistent jobs.

This phenomenon according to him can be blamed on what he calls irrelevant courses been studied at some of the universities and colleagues in the country.

Mr.Kyeremeh in an interview with Accra based *Montie fm* on Wednesday, said most of the over fifty private universities and colleagues in the country are only running business related courses to the neglect of relevant courses like engineering, ICT and the science related courses.

‘’Most of the accredited private universities in Ghana are running business and management courses . Question is, are the jobs available for these graduates when they leave school?’’

He disclosed that the country is currently lacking manpower in fields such as engineering, ICT, amongst others, adding that this has been one of the root causes of the current graduate unemployment in the country because there is a mismatch between the supply by the schools and the demand in the labour market in terms of skills required by employers.

The deputy Education minister said, government wants to ensure the production of a well-educated, skilled and informed population. A population that is capable of utilizing its knowledge and skills to transform the key sectors of the economy for wealth creation and poverty reduction is most desirable.

‘’ All the stakeholders need to come together to find a lasting solution to this problem. For example, the nation can allocate some resources to motivate the private universities to train students in the most relevant areas like engineering….’’he said.