Whichever way one looks at it, the ever increasing worry about mass unemployment at the world level has now assumed a very alarming proportion and this is the reason why the socio-economic development everywhere is now under a very serious threat even beyond various governments’ stretch of imagination.
It is an indubitable fact that so many youths in their teens and early thirties that have painstakingly graduated from tertiary institutions are, in one way or another, confronted by frustration since their search for the much elusive white collar job continues to be painfully out of their easy reach day in day out.
Obviously, a good number of people put the blame of this very biting social impasse at the door step of governments for not doing the right thing to make any meaningful provision for the employment of the young ones while another segment holds a strong belief that the educational system could be another responsible factor because of its inability to prepare the youths at the undergraduate level for the very harsh ubiquitous post-school challenges.
Some observers, however, feel that hope is not lost since various forms of youth empowerment programs can still be initiated both by the governments and non-governmental institutions. Many efforts with gradual incursion into various academic settings can be put in place to boost the entrepreneurial capacity of fresh school leavers the essence of which is to ensure that in the long run, they will jettison the rat race for salaried employment for self-reliance programs.
It goes without saying that, at present, most tertiary institutions teach their students how to be good employees and not how to be leaders of skill acquisition and wealth creation not minding the fact that to become a successful entrepreneur there is no way one can dispense with leadership qualities. While it is true that not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur it is easy for anyone to assume the position of leadership so the need for one to discover the right traits cannot be overemphasized.
So that one can be a successful leader and entrepreneur at the same time, it is necessary to imbibe discipline as a core value together with strict adherence to the statutory regulations of the country because that is the highpoint of success and leadership. The young ones should be encouraged to see beyond the normal school curricula, make a foray into various empowerment programs as well as activities directed at adding value to people and the social well-being.
Most of these programs should not just aim at building the necessary capacity in the people but also offer the necessary opportunity for the much needed job placements. While it is true that it is not only undergraduates and fresh graduates that should be taken into consideration, those in stable employment should also be carried along and that could be in the form of in situ capacity building.
It is quite important that those in stable employment should see themselves as leaders in their own right but must be conscious of the fact that their eventual success and development cannot be divorced from that of their employers who provide them with the wherewithal for their social sustenance no matter how they may look at issues. It is quite obvious that the inevitable changes in the global economic atmosphere continue to compel people to explore beyond their primary habitation in order to develop themselves for the enhancement of their financial capacity.
As a matter of fact, today, entrepreneurship appears to be the normal critical socio-economic driver that enables individuals and nations to utilize the opportunities and challenges ubiquitously induced by the current globalization so the need to address the way people can be empowered in the new global economy cannot be overemphasized.
