Younger folks should be a part of implementation, not simply session  – World Training Weblog – Studying & Tutorial Updates

By: Joshua Opey, Commonwealth Youth Council 

My identify is Joshua Opey, and I chair the Commonwealth Youth Council, the official youth organisation of the Commonwealth. I’m from Ghana. The Youth Council was established in 2013 and is endorsed by the Heads of Authorities of the Commonwealth. Since then, it has represented younger folks throughout the 56 member states, working with nationwide youth councils and youth consultant mechanisms to make sure that younger folks’s views are mirrored in decision-making. 

Our work takes place at totally different ranges. We signify younger folks in ministerial and pan-Commonwealth processes, however we’re additionally carefully concerned on the grassroots stage. In international locations the place nationwide youth councils exist, we assist them to strengthen their work. The place they don’t exist, we assist younger folks and governments to ascertain them. This mix of high-level advocacy and sensible engagement is central to our position. 

My very own expertise in youth and scholar illustration started early. In highschool, I used to be a part of a regional scholar consultant council in Ghana, representing greater than 50,000 college students within the Larger Accra Area. At the moment, we had been consulted on training coverage reforms that later led to free senior highschool training. At college, I served as Normal Secretary of the College of Ghana College students’ Union and later of the Nationwide Union of Ghana College students. Throughout this era, we supported the event of Ghana’s Nationwide Youth Coverage and labored on reforms to the scholar mortgage system. 

Some of the necessary classes I’ve realized is that significant youth engagement goes past session. For us, it means integrating younger folks all through decision-making processes and into implementation. Younger persons are typically excluded by assumptions about expertise or experience. But, repeatedly, younger folks with restricted formal expertise carry new concepts that problem long-standing practices which have did not ship outcomes, together with on training outcomes and the Sustainable Improvement Objectives. 

Resistance typically comes from discomfort with the vitality younger folks carry. Youth engagement can really feel disruptive. Previously, this disruption took the type of activism. Immediately, many younger persons are in search of one thing totally different: a seat on the desk as equal companions, the place they’ll co-design options moderately than push from the surface. Recognising younger folks as equal companions stays one of many greatest boundaries. 

A transparent instance of profitable youth engagement is the reform of the scholar mortgage scheme in Ghana. Though entry to primary and secondary training had expanded considerably, tertiary enrolment remained low, largely because of financing boundaries. The mortgage system required guarantors from the formal economic system, routinely excluding nearly all of younger folks. Pupil unions analysed the information, proposed alternate options, and advocated for change. The guarantor requirement was eliminated and changed with a system based mostly on nationwide identification, making entry to loans considerably simpler. College students had been additionally concerned in implementation, outreach, and monitoring. 

Wanting forward, the query shouldn’t be whether or not to contain younger folks, however how. Engagement should be tailored to younger folks, not the opposite method round. Conventional session instruments are sometimes inadequate. Youth-friendly and modern approaches—together with inventive, digital, and participatory strategies—can unlock insights that formal processes miss. On the similar time, younger folks should be a part of implementation. In international locations the place younger folks make up nearly all of the inhabitants, treating them solely as beneficiaries moderately than drivers of options limits progress. 

In training, younger persons are the central stakeholders. With out them, training has no objective. Integrating younger folks into decision-making and implementation shouldn’t be elective; it’s important for enhancing entry, high quality, and relevance. When younger persons are given actual mandates and actual duty, training programs are stronger and extra responsive. 

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The Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) is the official consultant voice of the greater than 1.2 billion younger folks within the Commonwealth. The CYC was first established in 2013 with the assist of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Commonwealth Youth Programme. It was endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Authorities at their biennial summit in Sri Lanka as an ‘autonomous, youth-led group 

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