Reports on the newspapers are again replete with stories of young people losing their lives at sea while onboard boats in a bid to reach the shores of Europe. Sometimes, these boats are not even sea worthy and are most often than not overloaded, making them prone to disasters at sea.
In yesterday’s newspapers, it was reported that the Senegalese navy intercepted one hundred and eighty-seven young Gambians on a canoe off the coast of Saint-Louis. It was said that these young people were on their way to Europe. They were said to have departed from Barra in the Lower Niumi District.
The would-be migrants were then transported back and handed over to the relevant authorities in the Gambia. This follows another boat disaster in which fifteen Gambians were confirmed to have lost their lives in Mauritania. It could be recalled that a few years ago, a tragedy occurred in which hundreds of Gambians lost their lives.
The issue of irregular migration has been a problem plaguing many countries in recent years and efforts have been ongoing to try to stem the flow as many young people have been losing their lives needlessly in attempts to reach Europe. It has proven a difficult task as poor economic conditions make young people desperate to reach Europe with the hope of getting lucrative jobs so as to contribute to the wellbeing of their families back home.
As poor economic conditions coupled with inadequate job opportunities have been identified as some of the causes of this exodus of the young, one of the most viable solutions must be the improvement of the economic wellbeing of the people through the creation of jobs for the youth of the country.
One of the best ways to do that is through revolutionizing the education system to make it more relevant to the needs of the people. The thing that is most lacking, and therefore most needed in the country, is skills. The education system must therefore provide young people with skills so that they would be self-employed without having to wait for the government to give them jobs.
