Degree In Hand Job Nowhere

Degree In Hand Job Nowhere

By Janet Tetteh

My sister graduated with a big smile and big dreams.

Like many young Ghanaians, she thought the degree was the key. Four years of sleepless nights, long lectures, expensive handouts and stressful project work. On her graduation day, my mother shouted with joy. We all thought her life was about to change. We thought the job would come.

It has been one year. She is still at home.

Every morning she wakes up, dresses up and sits in our small hall with her CV on her lap. She has applied for more than 50 jobs. Some do not reply. Some call for an interview and then say they will call her back. They never do.

This is not just my sister’s story. From Legon to KNUST to University of Cape Coast to Winneba, thousands of graduates are sitting at home. Degree in hand, but no job, no money and no direction.

“The certificate is in my room but my life is on pause,” Kwesi, a friend who graduated from UPSA with a First Class in Business Administration, told me. He now rides a motorbike to deliver food in East Legon.

For many graduates, unemployment after school is a silent pain. They cannot tell their parents they are tired because their parents struggled to pay their fees. They cannot tell their friends they are broke because people think they are now big men or big women.

So they smile. They post their graduation pictures again. But deep inside, they are worried.

Many graduates are now forced to do jobs they never studied for. Some are selling thrift clothes online, some are doing mobile money, some have become waiters and waitresses. It is not that these jobs are bad, but it is not what they dreamt of after all that education.

What is more painful is that every year, more people graduate. The competition becomes harder. You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.

For some, staying at home is even affecting their mental health. They feel useless. They feel left behind. They see their mates on social media travelling and making it, while they are still asking their parents for money to buy data.

But they are not lazy. Ghanaian graduates are ready to work. They are ready to learn, to volunteer, to start small. What they need is opportunity. Real opportunity.

Government says it is creating jobs. Companies say there are no vacancies. In the middle, our graduates are stuck.

My sister still believes her time will come. She still applies for jobs every day. She is learning graphic design on her phone while at home. She has not given up.

But today, I speak for every graduate who is sitting at home in Accra, in Kumasi, in Tamale, wearing their graduation gown in their room and wondering what next.

They went to school. They passed. Now Ghana, what is next for them?