Is Youth Unemployment really the fault of the Government alone?

Youth unemployment is generally blamed on the Government. It is sometimes described
as Government’s inability to provide jobs.  Most times, this wide-spread notion is a
political vice which the political opponents of an incumbent Government use to
attack the existing People in leadership. It is not possible for government to provide job for every man and woman of career age within a country.

As an effort to satisfy their opponents, some Governments have provided funds for various programs all for the sake of youth career sponsorship. But would an unskilled youth be given funds to do a job for which he or she cannot handle?

Academics were meant to prepare a child for a career. But the widespread corrupt approach
to academic pursuit has made the young ones intellectually poor. Even though it is still considered illegal, exam mal-practice is now a part of exam procedures. Parents sponsor their children to seat for external exams in special examination centers where even a mentally deranged child could seat for an examination and make all “A”s in his courses. This is probably the reason why the young ones arrived at the name “miracle center”. Miracle center is a name given to those special examination centers where nobody fails a course.

At the miracle centers, some adults who want to make big business would steal away the pre-set exam questions, solve and provide all the correct answers to the exam candidates. The candidates would put down the already-made answers on their answer scripts and phew!, The miracle happens. The child makes all “A”s.

Books were written for you to read, learn and adopt the ideas expressed in the book. Unfortunately most students read books for the sake of passing examinations,
not for the sake of acquiring knowledge. During exam preparation, it is fear of
failure that makes you read your books inside-out. Would a child who knows that
his mom or dad has paid some huge amount of money to some adults who would
solve all the exam questions for him/her have a need to read any books at all?

After obtaining the miracle exam results, these teenagers flow fast into the higher institutions where they continue buying high academic scores and grades. Those who were unable to buy school grades make the poor grades while those who bought grades make the highest academic grades.

You would not have an in-depth understanding of your profession if you do not study to learn. At
employment interviews, those who kept buying academic scores and grades from their teenage age to the time they became school graduates would obtain certificates but would not be professionally trained enough to present reliable skills in their chose profession. And when several employers reject them, they say “there is a high rate of unemployment”. They are simply not fit for the jobs they seek because they were not trained for their profession. They just bought school grades and that was all they thought that was required for them to obtain jobs.

As technology increases, career environment gets more competitive. There is a high demand for
practical skills. Job seekers who do not understand their chosen profession either get no jobs at all or keep falling in and out of jobs until they go entirely out of employment.

I was a part of an interview team who were meant to recruit some applicants who applied for
jobs in information technology. There before us was an applicant who made a second class upper division. That’s the most common grade amongst the highest performers you know. And I must confess, his curriculum vitae was much more sophisticated than mine was when I was a fresh school graduate. I respected the candidate when I read through the CV. During the interview, he was asked “What kind of Operating systems have you ever used?”.  He said “ I have not really operated any machines by myself but I supervise those who operate the machines”. I didn’t get it, so I asked “what kind of machines are they?, he said “forklifts”. I said “no, I’m not talking about machines. This is about computers. I mean what operating systems have you ever used while working with a computer?

He said “oooh, I’m sorry, now I understand your question. On a computer, the operating system I use is e…eer..rrhm…. I can browse the internet, like send e-mails. I asked again, “can you type a document”? He smiled brightly and said “yes, I can type on word”. And then I asked, “That Microsoft word application runs on an operating system”. And he agreed with a long
nod and a smile saying “yeeess, you’re right ma”. I felt a little bit encouraged because I thought he was close to the answer. So I asked again “what operating system was the Microsoft word running on? He said “actually there are different kinds of operating systems, like in my house, I use HP. There is also another one caller Dell”.

 At this point, our team leader lost patience, and said to him. “Submit duplicates of your credentials to the woman opposite you and thanks for coming. May we attend
to the next person”? With that, his session ended. Operating system is an everyday language in computing. Non-computer graduates know about windows 7 and 8 operating systems. The candidate I must say stays very far away from computing, even though he studied computer science and worst still has next to the highest academic grade.

Situations whereby people buy academic grades from their early teenage age until after becoming school graduates causes the production of such unemployable graduates. And there are a great number of such people who seek hired jobs. Do we blame this kind of unemployment on the government or on the exam mal-practice merchants and parents who pull children and youths away from professional standards at the formative stages of their careers?