By Wezi Tjaronda WINDHOEK Concerned about the high unemployment rate among the youth in Namibia, some organizations in the private sector have started programmes to equip the youth with entrepreneurial skills. Yesterday, Holcim Cement launched a pilot project of the Youth Entrepreneurship Programme aimed at equipping Grades 11 and 12 learners with the right tools of the trade to use beyond Grade 12. Given the high failure rate among school-leavers, a large percentage of learners do not make the entry level to tertiary institutions of learning and have to resort to Namcol, or to the streets. The five-day course for 40 learners whose subjects include business management and accounting from A Shipena, Academia, Jan Jonker and Ella du Plessis, will attempt to give an answer to the high unemployment rate, which stands at 36.7 percent. A large percentage of these are the youth. Depending on the success of the project, Holcim will roll out the programme to other schools and other parts of Namibia as well. Among others, the learners are being introduced to simulation, basics of setting up a business, discussing the nitty-gritty of how a business works and also undertaking tours to get first-hand information on how companies work. Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Alpheus !Naruseb, said as he launched the programme that unless the youth take themselves seriously and look positively to contributing to the growth of the economy, they would end up being part of the unemployment statistics. Some of the contributing factors to unemployment, which !Naruseb said tends to affect people with lower educational attainment, include dropping out of school, lack of experience, the educational system, rapid growth of the population entering the labour market, rapid rural to urban migration, poor productivity and an export-driven economy. He said that although the government has put strategies in place to address the challenges of unemployment, a look at the increase in Grades 10 and 12 school-leavers meant that the unemployment rate is growing. The minister urged the learners to look at themselves as job-creators and not as job-seekers. “You need to start dreaming of being a director of your own company. You need to see yourself as someone who will take this county to greater heights,” he said, adding: “You need to start creating a society of school-leavers who are no longer dependent on government jobs and competing for few positions in the private sector, but people who will grow the industries of Namibia and create more jobs.” He said the industry needs demand-driven educational programmes that equip the youth with skills required on the labour market. Holcim’s Country Manager, Johan Burger, said his company wanted to ensure that when learners matriculate and do not get an opportunity to enter university, or any other institution of higher learning, they should have tools to help them earn a living and not wait for the government to employ them. “We need to ask ourselves – Do we make a difference or do we become part of the unemployment statistics?” he added.