GEA recruits 7,141 youth for apprenticeship

The Ghana Enterprises Agency, formerly known as the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), says since January this year, it has recruited 7,141 Ghanaians to undergo apprenticeship training for a six-month period.

The youth, comprising of 6,187 females and 953 males, were selected from 32 districts within the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Savannah, Bono, and Central regions.

They are to learn skills in respective trades of interest at the hands of 2,042 Skilled Craft Persons (SCP) who were matched to the selected apprentices under the Apprenticeship to Entrepreneurship (A2E) component of the NBSSI/Mastercard Foundation Young Africa Works initiative.

Skills are to be acquired in areas such dressmaking, hairdressing, tiling, baking and confectionery, catering, auto electrician, auto mechanics, auto spraying, beekeeping, welding and fabrication, plumbing, general electricals, air-conditioning repairs, and a host of others.

The Executive Director of GEA, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, in an interview, indicated that the matching process was introduced to curb absenteeism and for that reason, the residential location of apprentices was carefully considered before they were attached to SCPs.

“Both the apprentices and the SCPs were also taken through the rules of engagement, and their roles and responsibilities. Guidance and Counselling sessions were also conducted for the SCPs and apprentices,” she said.

She noted that there was an ongoing monitoring process to check the progress of new apprentices at job sites and also that of start-up beneficiaries who have been supported to start their own businesses.

“Those who need to have their businesses registered are linked to the Business Regulatory Officer to support them in registering their businesses with Registrar General Department. Some of them have also taken on apprentices to train,” she added.

She also talked about plans to introduce new areas of trade so as to give the youth leverage to choose the skills they want to learn.