Founder and CEO of DTI and Accent Arts, Constance Elizabeth Swaniker, has called for a repackaging and promotion of vocational schools as a means to addressing unemployment in Ghana.

According to her the over-concentration on white collar jobs while neglecting the opportunities blue collar work can offer citizens is responsible for the growing unemployment in the country.

She said Ghana needs a new generation of blue collar workers to push the country’s industrialization agenda forward, and thus, it is necessary for state actors to make blue collar work attractive to young people.

This she says can be done by first dispelling the negative narrative surrounding those who attend vocational school.

“Back in the day if you were in a vocational school, then you were perceived unintelligent. But I am a product of vocation…But the perception around TVET how do we also then repackage it when they see people like myself coming in from that background and having come this far.

“Socializing our parents who then also are the problem, the teachers, not everybody is meant to become a doctor, we have enough of those. What we now need is a new generation of blue collar workers, and how do we make it attractive to young people as well?” she said.

She believes that by pushing for more students to take up vocational courses, the country will churn out more people who are industry ready and equipped to create jobs for themselves.