The Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has questioned the increasing trend of Ghanaian youth seeking low-skilled job opportunities abroad despite having immense intellectual potential and educational foundations.

Speaking at the 2025 graduation ceremony of DPS International School in Tema on June 21, 2025, the Asantehene delivered a message to the graduating class under the theme “Championing the Nation’s Future.”

He challenged the youth to look inward and reimagine Ghana as a land of possibilities rather than a departure point.

He expressed disappointment that many young Ghanaians, including those with exceptional academic and intellectual abilities, often abandon the country in search of menial jobs in developed countries while their global peers are innovating and building multi-million-dollar enterprises.

“Graduates in the UK, India, China, and the United States are moving on to design groundbreaking technologies, invent life-saving drugs, and develop tools that expand humanity’s reach beyond Earth,” Manhyia affiliate online portal opemsuo.com quoted him to have said.

“They will all be building on the same foundations laid for you here, applying the same tools you have been exposed to. How do they do that in India China and Japan and Vietnam? And how come you, some with outstanding minds, are stuck in the rot, struggling for opportunities to go and sweep the streets of these countries?”

Otumfuo noted that the difference lies not in opportunity, but in mindset.

He urged the students to recognise the vast potential within Ghana and to use their creativity, courage, and innovation to build a better future for themselves and the nation.

He added, “The answer lies in the mind. There is no future anywhere better than where you are. The future is HOME and, in your minds, to create. It is in your minds to create and innovate and in your hands to mould and shape the world you want.”

“That is the future you want to champion. The future in which Ghanaian youth are changing the face of agriculture, bringing the miracles of science and technology to produce the food we need to feed the nation and to provide raw materials for industry.

“A future in which Ghanaian youth take centre stage in the race to utilize our natural resources to create wealth for themselves and the nation. A future in which Ghanaian youth are firmly in the driving seat of the big technological community that is shaping the world.”

AM/KA

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