3,500 Yaa Asantewaa Girls SHS students trained in digital finance

Yaa Asantewaa Girls Senior High School, in collaboration with the Women in Forex Ghana has equipped about 3,500 students with knowledge and skills in digital finance literacy to adequately prepare them for better personal financial management and career opportunities on the job market.

The partnership for digital finance literacy training, under ‘The Elevate Ghana Forex Project’ forms part of activities to commemorate the school’s 65 years anniversary.

The initiative is to advocate for the need for exploration of the digital finance industry through training and mentorship, enlightening the youth of the enormous financial and career opportunities in the industry that they are leverage.

Touching on the relevance of the initiative, the Women in Forex project highlighted that the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by 2050 by the United Nations (UN) and currently 60 percent of the population is under the age of 25, making Africa the world’s youngest continent.

The burgeoning youth population is both an opportunity and a challenge for the continent. Internet, digital penetration and engagements of African youth increased from 24.4 percent in 2018 to 90 percent in 2020, as indicated by ITU Digital world (Child Online Protection Organization) but most of the activities online by the youth are not very productive even though great career and financial opportunities abound online.

These statistics, present an opportunity for the continent’s growth but only if these new generations are fully empowered and trained to realise their best potentials.

It’s important the youth are included in decision making and given appreciate opportunities for work, training and to innovate.

The UN estimates 16million young African are facing unemployment. On average, 11million young people join the African Labour market each year yet the continent generates only 3.7 million jobs annually, a gap too wide to be ignored.

Headmistress of Yaa Asantewaa SHS, Felicia Asamoah, indicated that to that effect, the school embarked on the collaborative digital finance skills program with the Women in Forex to empower the students.

CEO of Women in Forex Ghana and head of the training project, Gifty Annor-Sika Asantewah, an old student of the school, stated that Yaa Asantewaa Girls is the first SHS to benefit from this programme.

She indicated that inculcating the value of saving and investment among others in students at this teenage will go a long way to sharpen their financial decisions smartly for future financial liberation.

“lt is paramount to catch them young and instill these skills in them to inform their money decisions as they grow as such education is relevant in this era of unemployment and pandemics,” she said.

The Head of Academics, Mr. Abosi in an interview disclosed that, the misconception about forex trading and the digital finance industry in general makes it not attractive and as such education is needed early to decipher the myths.

He emphasised that training the students in financial literacy early gives them an added advantage on the capital market and the need to indulge and explore career and financial paths in forex trading becomes easy.

“The goal of this Digital Finance training programme is to adequately equip the youth with skill set that are relevant in this pandemic era for a better livelihood, gear the youth toward productive online engagements and reduce cybercrime and help government’s policy to reduce unemployment,” she said.

The capital market especially the foreign exchange market is the most liquid market on earth.

Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of forex market in 2019 amounted to roughly US$142 trillion with the entire worth of the market standing at US$2.4 quadrillion with over 170 currencies been traded reported, according to the Bank of international settlement.

The IMARC group predicts a compound annual growth rate of six percent for the forex industry in the next five years.

The industry is green in Africa especially Ghana, the more reason why there is the need to study and train to bridge the educational and capacity gap in hopes of future career opportunities for the African youth.

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