The Ghana Workers Brigade: A Project for Unemployed Youth

Abstract

matter of urgency for many governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America during recent years. The high proportion of young people under the age of 15 in the population, estimated to be 41 per cent in Africa and 40 per cent in Latin America and Asia in 1960, is one of the contributory factors. Another is the innocent aggravation of the problem by the programmes of accelerated expansion of primary and middle-school education in the new independent states, such as Ghana and Nigeria, which flood the labour market with armies of school-leavers each year. In Ghana, between 1957 and 1963, just over ioo,ooo extra employment places became available, whereas in the same period over 16o,ooo left elementary schools.x In Western Nigeria the output of successful primary school leavers rose from 54,000 in 1958 to 129,000 in 1960. During the period of the current Nigerian development plan, 1962-8, Eastern Nigeria estimates that nearly 80o,ooo primary school leavers will be looking for employment, 2 and Western Nigeria estimates that 420,000 primary and secondary-modern school leavers will enter the labour market.3 The current Ghana SevenYear Development Plan aims to expand the economy quickly enough to absorb 70,000 additional workers per annum in contrast to the Ioo,ooo jobs provided in the 1957-63 period. School-leavers from primary schools have no skills but literacy. Their expectations were once high when they set out for the urban areas in search of work. However, there is now some evidence to suggest that the seeds of disillusionment have taken root in their minds.4 For the vast majority of them there is no hope of secondary education but this does not dampen their enthusiasm for education; many pursue private study through correspondence courses or attend private commercial and technical schools of doubtful quality. Jobs in the towns, except for seasonal work of an unskilled and menial nature, are unobtainable, but young people prefer to remain in the towns as the restrictions of traditional family life in the villages hold no attractions I13