88 graduate at YDM

Eighty-eighty students over the weekend graduated from the Youth Development Movement (YDM) Education Centre at Calaba Town, east of the capital.
This is the sixth graduation ceremony of that centre since it was established and re-established in 1992 and 2000 respectively.
Speaking at the ceremony, the chairman Silas Gbandia of Citizen Radio praised the challenges undertaken by the graduants to make themselves self-sufficient and also for the bold steps to help in nation building and development. Mr Gbandia also congratulated the staff of the institution for guiding the graduants through their successful stage.
He said for society to progress and for one to fight poverty, education should be under taken.
The board chairman of the institution, Rev Fr. Paul Jusu, said the knowledge the graduants had acquired would enhance them in their future endeavours both for the good of the country and community.
He said the institute had the capacity of training 160 people every academic year in tailoring, catering, soap making, carpentry which would be replaced next year with computer hard and soft ware training, and also trauma healing. Fr. Jusu explained that the purpose of the institution was to reduce the number of drop-outs especially within the Calaba town community and to help in the growth in the community.
Giving his report the principal of YDM, David A. Yambasu, said it was not easy preparing the students to that stage as 88 were enrolled for 2005/6 for which 50 were successful with 8 dropping out from the course and 30 continued into 2007. In that year, 103 were enrolled, 38 completed, 42 dropped out and in total 191 enrolled, 88 graduated, 50 dropped out from the course. He spoke of constraints at the institution ranging from insufficient allowance for teachers to difficulty in acquiring practical materials by students to lack of start-up tools for graduates. The assistant director Tech/Voc in the ministry of Education Youths and Sports urged the students to make useful their certificates as education was measured by how much one contributed not only to his community but to the nation as a whole.