Promote young people in business Source: Trade Pasifika Wednesday, April 02, 2014 SEVENTY million young people in the world were estimated to be unemployed in 2013 International Labour Organisation (ILO) And the Youth in Business Gallery at Trade Pasifika will not only promote the potentials of young people in business from the Pacific, but also address the issues and challenges they face as young entrepreneurs. In the Pacific, youth unemployment rates stand at an alarming 23 per cent and young people are six times (ILO 2012) less likely to secure jobs than older workers. Youth unemployment rates range from 62.6 per cent in the Republic of Marshall Islands, 46 per cent in the Solomon Islands and 8.9 per cent in Vanuatu (SPC). In 2011, the Pacific Youth Council (PYC) with the support of the ILO and other development agencies led an advocacy project to obtain the endorsement of the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) leaders, highlighting youth employment as the major challenge facing young men and women in the Pacific. With the slow economic growth and the increasing youth population in the Pacific, a high dependency ratio has been created contributing to enormous burdens on the relatively small economies (SPC 2011). The endorsement of the 10 year Pacific Youth Development Framework (PYDF 2014) by Pacific Youth Ministers, which has youth employment as one of the four key priorities presents opportunities for government and stakeholders to find real solutions to addressing this major challenge. While there is a lot of emphasis on formal education and training, waged employment is limited. In Fiji, each year over 17,000 new entrants join the labour market. Of this number, approximately 10,000 are mainly secondary school leavers. The prospects of these young school leavers obtaining paid employment in the formal economic sector is limited and appears to be decreasing. In addition, the Fiji Minister for Labour recently highlighted Of the 30,000 people registered at the National Employment Centre, slightly more than 1000 are degree holders and 11,000 have some form of tertiary qualification. (Fiji Times 2014). This proves that there are opportunities available for motivated, young men and women to enter into self-employment to sustain their livelihoods and contribute to their families and communities. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that young people have access to entrepreneurial education at an early age, and to establish business development services (BDS) to support the start-up and sustainability of youth business. The ILOs entrepreneurship education program Know About Business (KAB) developed in 1987, targets secondary schools and TVET institution and responds to the needs of developing countries that intend to introduce entrepreneurship education at an early age. KAB was first introduced to the Pacific in Papua New Guinea and the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) piloted the KAB as a public investment project in 2009. PNGs Vision 2050 highlights the need for entrepreneurial skills for its young people as 50 per cent of students drop out at the end of Grade eight, and 70 per cent of students leave school between grades 9-11. This will provide a practical insight to the KAB curriculum they are currently studying. The gallery will display products by these young entrepreneurs, there will be business games and competitions, discussion forums, sharing of experiences and the young entrepreneurs will have the opportunity have an audience with prominent speakers such as Mr Jeremy Liddle, a global youth entrepreneurship advocate from the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance and the UN Under Secretary for Small Island Development States (SIDS).
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 00:32:04 +0000
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