It’s high time our students and graduates alike should be ready to take up responsibility on their own as government fails year-round to create new jobs in the country.

So since government can’t bring new jobs for the graduating youth, a new thinking is needed by those leaving colleges and universities across Sierra Leone.

Now, it’s never the time that university graduates and continuing students and dropouts should be waiting on government to open up job spaces for them.

Any university graduate who thinks along this line is deceiving himself/herself. Because, the governments of Sierra Leone has routinely failed to employ at least one thousand graduates each year from universities.

And now that the University of Sierra Leone (USL), comprising Fourah Bay College, College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences and the Institute of Public Administration and Management, has expanded as students enrollments double up in every academic year, the number of graduates is increasing roughly to more than four thousand students every year just from USL alone.

Yet, the current government has been unable to provide jobs to as small as a figure of two hundred thousand fresh graduates each year from USL. This is not to talk of the existing old colleges and higher learning institutions doing technical and vocational courses over the years. These institutions used to produce thousands of graduates surpassing USL each year when combined together.

These are: The then, Port Loko Teachers College now being upgraded to Ernest Bai Koroma University; Eastern Polytechnic in Kenema which has been lately upgraded to   Eastern University in Kenema; The Makeni Northern Polytechnic which is now called Ernest Bai Koroma University, The Milton Margai College of Education which has also been recently upgraded to a university status with its main campus at Goderich in Freetown and IAMTECH college at Kissy Dockyard, which under the Bio-led administation, being made a university, and Njala university which has graduated many students who have been helping the country to develop.

The existing colleges and universities like Njala have existed for a number of years. And they have unveiled many university professionals who have been contributing immensely to the growth of Sierra Leone’s economy.  But now the country’s economy is struggling to peak up as inflation persists which is denying many fresh graduates to get jobs.

Though, the Bio-led administration, some would argue, has opened up more access to primary, secondary and higher education more than any other government in the history of Sierra Leone within just five years of President Maada Bio’s leadership, other critics of Bio would argue, on the other hand, that more enrollments and graduates are adding up the numbers of unemployment youths and young men and women in the country.

It is believed that President Bio’s old-five administration was not doing enough or acting very seriously to tackling youths and graduates unemployment issue in the country.

Mr. Bio is quoted to have ridiculously told USL graduates at National Stadium on a congregation ceremony that graduates must engage in ”entrepreneurship” ventures.

The President is aware of the situation that he has partly created by banning mining companies to stop operation immediately he assumed presidency since April 4, 2018.

Mining activities by private companies in the country were put on hold, creating a spree of redundancy by young people who were working with those companies.

Since minerals like iron ore deposits could not be shipped through Pepel port in Port Loko and that mines work in Lunsar Marampa hills had been stopped then, government of Sierra Leone was losing millions of millions of dollars from royalties, causing a situation of less money circulation of the country’s domestic Leones.

Thus, prices on goods and services were not only made by the government to shoot up dramatically, which was resulting to economic hardship for the people, but the strange phenomenon, to ban “legally registered” mining firms, created by the government of Bio-five-year led administration was also giving way for a ”polarized” business climate for entrepreneurship businesses to thrive which President Maada Bio thoughtless to have told graduates to take up entrepreneurship as a new path for graduates.

President Bio had long failed young people of Sierra Leone (skilled and unskilled young men ) including the many graduates from colleges and universities, and graduates from other higher learning institutions. Because he couldn’t fulfill his promise to ”create many job opportunities” for youth as indicated in SLPP 2018 People’s Manifesto under his New Direction agenda.

Under the five-year New Direction administration, observable statistics could indicate that there are millions of unemployed youth both skilled and unskilled women and men and graduates having professional qualifications (diplomas, degrees, and masters) between 2018 and 2023.

At present, the future for young graduates, uneducated youth, and skilled youth, is hopeless. Most young people and school dropouts are hopeless and homeless. There are no job opportunities for them in the country. A good number of Sierra Leonean   youth have now become drug addicts, consuming daily a deadly substance called Kush.

Frustratingly, this time unlike the past five years of Bio, Bio’s new government is struggling to peak up as international donor support by UK, USA, and other countries in the world is pronounced to pause for a while by UK and USA governments not until SLPP’s government ensures that the just concluded June 24 , 2023 General Elections in Sierra Leone  reflect the choices of the majority of Sierra Leoneans.

The international community has put a hold on foreign aid on the grounds that Sierra Leone’s elections were believed to be largely not transparent, thus world leaders have called for an “outside independent investigation” into the June 24 controversial elections.

Since the fate of Sierra Leone is unclear than in the past five years of President Bio, graduates from colleges and universities, continuing students and the unskilled young men and women, should now adopt a new method in the absence of the many  jobs being created by the new, New Direction government and by the private sector.

The university graduates should explore several alternative new ways such as going into farming activities, doing agriculture which pays a lot now and by exploring the internet and social media for overseas study opportunities.