Today’s youth can do better with lessons from the past – Kufuor

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has called on older generations to deliberately pass on their knowledge and experience to young people, saying mentorship can help prepare the next generation to take up leadership responsibilities more quickly and effectively.

He said the experiences accumulated over decades of public service should not be lost but organised into practical lessons that could help young people navigate the challenges of leadership and national development.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Wednesday, October 28, Mr Kufuor said his own journey to the highest office in the country had involved years of learning through different professional and public service roles.

He said many young people might not have the time or opportunity to undergo a similar process, making it important for older generations to share the lessons they had learnt.

“This is part of the reason I want to leave a legacy for the youth,” he said.

“I say I came to what I eventually ended in through a long apprenticeship. They may not be privileged to undergo such an apprenticeship with time.”

Mr Kufuor said his generation had a responsibility to package its experiences in ways that could be useful to young people, including through initiatives such as foundations and mentorship programmes.

“My generation should feel a responsibility to sort of package the experiences we’ve had to go through to get to where we are, because I believe in the intergenerational evolution of society,” he said.

Bridging the generational gap

The former president said young people today had advantages that previous generations did not enjoy, particularly in education, science and technology.

He observed that access to modern communication tools and digital technology had made it easier for the current generation to obtain information and learn at a faster pace.

“I tend to believe the current generation is far better educated than your generation in earlier times,” he said.

Mr Kufuor acknowledged that while older people possessed valuable experience, young people had greater access to technological resources that could help them build on that knowledge.

He recalled that in the 1950s and 1960s, even a large city such as Kumasi had very limited telephone connections, with communication facilities far less accessible than they are today.

The contrast, he said, demonstrated how much the world had changed and how technology had expanded opportunities for learning and communication.

He said the challenge was to combine the experience of older generations with the educational and technological advantages available to young people.

Helping the next generation do better

Mr Kufuor said sharing the lessons of the past could help young people understand how earlier generations had overcome challenges and contributed to the country’s development.

Rather than requiring them to learn every lesson through trial and error, he said, structured mentorship could give them a clearer understanding of what had worked, what had failed and what could be improved.

He expressed the hope that young people, equipped with such insights, would be able to build on the achievements of their predecessors and take society further.

“If we put our experiences in such a package before them, I would expect them to quickly get insights into how we did it so they can do it even better,” he said.

His comments underline the importance of intergenerational knowledge transfer and mentorship in preparing young people for leadership, while recognising the contribution that education and technology can make to their development.