Foundations for truly unleashing the potential of Sierra Leone's youth

The youth need incentives to unleash their great potential if they are to champion the socio-economic transformation of our nation.
Among the strongest pillars of a successful country is a youthful population empowered to support its social and economic transformation. We are very lucky to be blessed with a very young population. However a large number of young men and women is a raw material; without adding value added to it, we lose the opportunity to truly harness the potential inherent in the young people we are blessed with.
Today's youth (like it or not) face a rapidly changing and higly inter-connected world that requires them to be able to provide creative and innovative solutions to existing challenges, to possess a formidable skill set, and an attitude fuelled by a strong desire to improve themselves and their communities. This requires value to be added to the youth.
What does adding value to the youth of Sierra Leone look like? Empowering young people to become proactive champions in our country's development rests on the tools and platforms made available to them and crucially on the nature of the the structural incentives faced by young people.

In a world where ideas are the gems of growth and where the need for young people to be able to collaborate in a global stage continues to increase, much work has to be done to transform the education we give to our young people. We cannot continue to have our university graduates cramming to pass exams, we have to get them prepared to take on the challenges of this country. Our school and university syllabuses need to be rid of archaic material and subjects that aren't useful for the world of today. Education is about learning what is important for the world we face. We have to restructure our educational institutions to prioritise getting young people prepared for local and global life, not just passing exams. This would require incentives in the form of well thoughtout policies to empower the youth with the tools to succeed in a digitized global economy. We also have to measure whatever young people learn with its practical usefulness in today's society and transfrom the methods of teaching and learning used in our educational institutions to fit the Sierra Leone of today. The needs of the country should be what shapes educational processes and not the other way round.
Also, there needs to be a stronger link between schools and platforms for youth collaboration and empowerment. Young people, by the time they leave school, should have been educated and exposed to national and international opportunities where they can use what they have learned to work with other young people across the country and across countries to bring about innovative solutions that transform their communities.

Often forgotten is that even in the presence of incredible amounts of platforms and resources, little can be achieved when the system disincentivises young people. Highly visible and pervasive corruption, interference of political interests in the normal functioning of public institutions and processes, tribal and familial appointments, and poor institutional accountability measures all discourage the youth from working hard to develop innovative solutions necessary for a transformed and diversified nation. Sadly, without tackling these challenges (which requires a leadership dedicated to nation building) results will be mediocre at best.

There is no doubt that Sierra Leone is a blessed nation full of  natural blessings a country would pray for. The next step requires our leadership to get more serious about the challenges this country faces, to make our education fit for today's Sierra Leone,  and to strengthen platforms for engaging our youth both locally and internationally. And finally we must assure young people that yes it is possible to make it and be succesful here in Sierra Leone. Let's make Sierra Leone youth friendly.
This way we set a strong foundation to truly unleash the potential of Sierra Leone's youth to champion our country's transformation to a place we can all be proud to call home.