Policy focuses on youth employment

National

By PETER ESILA
A YOUTH employment policy framework will be tabled in Parliament soon with an aim to find pathways to address unemployment in the country.
Youth Religion and Community Development Minister Soroi Eoe told The National that he had already taken it to Cabinet.
The framework, drafted by the National Youth Development Authority (NYDA), is within Eoe’s ministry.
It has been mandated by national government under NYDA Act 2014 to oversee youth development in the country.
This is through policy formulation, implementing youth policy, establishing youth council networks, offering capacity-building training for youths and working with 22 provinces in the country.
Eoe said the framework would be focused on terms of monitoring and coordination of employment pathways.
This is by encouraging inter-governmental sectors to work together to try to provide employment opportunities.
“We coordinate all these activities, so we have some ideas of how many students are coming into the pool of people who are looking for jobs,” Eoe said.
“Right now that information is not there, it is all over the place.
“At the same time, we are also looking at initiatives where we can engage ourselves in areas where we can train young people and also empower them, to go and train others to create employment opportunities for others.
“I am yet to present it on the floor of Parliament.
“Even if I am the coordinating minister, I am one part of the solution.
“There are private sector and Government sector who are all addressing the same issue of youth.
“My job is to coordinate how many students have been coming out or pushed out of the education system, whether they are university or grade 12 graduates.
“All stakeholders need to work together.”