You are here: HomeWebbersOpinionsArticles2021 11 17Article 1403575

Opinions of Wednesday, 17 November 2021

Columnist: Kobina Amo-Aidoo

Bawumia is right, digitization is the future

Kobina Amo-Aidoo Kobina Amo-Aidoo

Employment across the world comes in three faces; the upper, the middle and the lower class. Majority of the labour force in Ghana is captured under the “useless” class; for the want of a better word.

The future of this globe is presenting a world where the livelihood is mostly computerized or technological. 1.3million people die every year due to road accidents with majority of the reasons being human error.

The future presents Full Autonomous vehicles (self driving cars) which would reduce this 1.3 million human error related deaths to nearly 0. This simply means; Taxi drivers are going to loose their jobs as carpooling, ride-sharing and ride hailing is fast taking over. Trotro and bus drivers would also go out of job as subway systems and automated speed trains and are also fast evolving.

Macdonalds and KFC has set an alarming pace where food vendors and street hawkers are not necessarily needed when one needs to place an order. If this doesn’t scare food vendors and market women, nothing will.

The controversial “Okada” and “Pragyia” drivers would seemingly also be running at a loss as people’s intention to use safer, mordern, convenient yet cheaper transport modes would take the centre stage.

China, Japan and other western nations have developed robots that do more effective cleaning than humans. Can we phantom what this means to that cohort of workers?

Security guards and even our security forces would to a great extent be rendered adamant as the crime rate would be reduced drastically as a result of low human contacts and the inclusion of CCTV cameras that uncover wrong doings for punitive actions.

The list is endless and if this doesn’t alarm you, I don’t know what will. Sadly this wouldn’t be the fault of the individual but technology would simply make people “useless”

Unless one can code and is very conversant with computer based systems, speak various languages learn a complex skill etc you would only be rendered unemployed and unemployable.

Rather unfortunately, our training and education system is modeled in such a way where the output is directed at being able to be memorable and competitive rather than being self-thought-provoking with ideas.

The “babadier” (chew-pour-pass-forget) systems in our universities should be addressed with more pragmatic ways of evaluation else garbage-in-garbage -out phenomena would only cripple our growth as a country as majority would be helplessnessly unemployable.

The solution however, remains; TRAINING, EDUCATION and SENSITIZATION now!