Over 1,000 students from about 200 Senior High Schools have participated in the seventh Junior Achievers Trust International (JATI) business forum at Tamale in the Northern Region.
The one-week event was aimed at educating the students with practical economic and business education programmes through a partnership with the business and education communities.
The event was organised by JATI, a non-governmental organisation working with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education, and co-sponsored by the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL).
At the opening ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of JATI, Mr Paul Yeboah, stressed the need for the youth to be built into a business class for them to identify their future career so as to improve the socio-economic development of the country.
He called on governments to work with international donors to ensure that emerging best practices relating to the protection of the rights and interests of the youth were applied in all spheres of life in the country.
“Donors should use their funds to encourage research innovation and pilot testing, especially to identify youth livelihood development approaches that are sellable, replicable and sustainable,” he added.
He said the next vision of JATI was to set up Ghana Youth Business Trust (GYBT), which would identify a partner to strengthen, scale up and replicate innovative business models that empower poor disadvantaged youth.
He said JATI was also interested in securing the future of the youth and had, therefore, introduced the JATI Life Education Assurance Programme (LEDA).
Through LEDA, all students of JATI member schools are insured with the State Insurance Company (SIC) Life for their school fees to continue to be paid in the event of the death of a parent.
“Also, brilliant, needy students of member schools are also catered for and we have a number of them whose school fees are fully being paid for by JATI,” he stated.
He, however, expressed worry that despite the advantages JATI brought to students, many headmasters of senior high schools in the north were reluctant to embrace it.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Bukari Mabengba, in a speech read on his behalf, expressed regret that no school in the north had embraced the JATI programme since its inauguration in January last year.
He asked the participating students to listen and produce whatever they would be taught so that the forum could serve as the spring board to the future.
The Northern Zonal Manageress of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd, Mrs Memuna Mahama, asked the participants to be abreast of business issues if they wanted to succeed as entrepreneurs.
She said the Graphic Business, one of the newspapers of the company, was a custom-made response to the needs and expectations of the business community.
She told the participants that patronising it would let them be abreast of issues in banking, finance, insurance, stock markets, business life and business related issues needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.
