Inter-governmental Symposium on Unemployed Youth

Extract

In recent years many countries in tropical Africa have seen the growth of an urgent problem: unemployment among young people. Although in some areas local unemployment has been a continuing problem, this new, more serious form has emerged as a result of accelerated social change and demands difficult policy decisions. The problem arises from the rapid expansion of basic education without widespread facilities for further education and without many possibilities for labour absorption in the modern sector of the economy. Frequently the effect of primary schooling is to turn young people away from traditional means of making a living: those in villages reject farming and migrate to the cities to compete for the few wage-paid jobs. Each year the number of school leavers increases and the pool of unemployed grows.