World Skills Day: 1.9 million youth not in education, employment, or training?

The 2023 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey shows that 1.9 million youth aged 15 to 35 years in Ghana were not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET).From the figure, females predominated with 1.2 million compared with males of  715,691. This is in a statement from the Ghana Statistical Service to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.It said one in every three youth resided in the Greater Accra Region, with over half a million (565,360) youth not engaging in any of the three activities. Four other regions, besides Greater Accra, also recorded youth NEET over 100,000: the Ashanti (352,503), Central (155,171), Eastern (143,601), and Western (137,865) regions. The youth NEET rate for females representing 21.0 per cent was six percentage points higher than for males of 15.0 per cent.It said Greater Accra had the highest NEET rate with a little over a quarter (26.9 per cent) of the population 15 to 35 years not engaged in education, employment, or training.North East Region with 19.5 per cent had the second highest rate with about one in five youth NEET. The statement said all regions except Bono East (8.3 per cent) had NEET rates in double figures.The NEET rate it said was higher for youth in urban areas (20.6 per cent) than for rural residents (15.0 per cent). Comparing quarter three(Q3) of 2023 with the same period in 2022, NEET fell by 5.9 percentage points from 24.1 to 18.2 per cent. In all, the total number of youth NEET decreased by almost half a million (462,998) over the period. Between the third quarters of 2022 and 2023, the percentage of youth NEET declined in all regions except Greater Accra, which experienced a marginal increase of 0.5 percentage points. Greater Accra was the only region to record increases in youth NEET for both males and females between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023.In the other 15 regions, youth NEET declined for both males and females except for Western, which recorded a divergent trend by sex: a 5.9 percentage point decrease for males and a 0.3 percenta ge point increase for females. World Youth Skills Day is commemorated annually on July 15, to highlight the importance of providing youth with the relevant skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. The theme for 2024 is 'Youth Skills for Peace and Development'. Source: Ghana News Agency