Liberia's Youth and Sports Minister Cornelia Wonkerleh Kruah has called on Gonet Academy to expand its role in the country's development. On October 31, 2026, Minister Kruah was the keynote speaker at the Academy's 15th graduation ceremony, where 909 students received certificates and diplomas. The event took place at the Harvest Intercontinental Cathedral. Minister Kruah offered her ministry's assistance in tracking graduates from training into work.
Gonet Academy was established in February 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many institutions were closing. Despite the challenges, the Academy has produced over 5,000 alumni. It offers more than 20 courses, ranging from ten-week certificates to six-month comprehensive programs. These courses include procurement, project management, and data analysis. The Academy's Founder and Chief Empowerment Officer, Mohammed Kerkulah, noted that the 909 graduates include individuals who completed two or more courses.
The graduation ceremony saw 208 students complete the six-month Comprehensive Professional Programme, and 47 complete the Professional Diploma Programme. The Foundation Certificate Programme had the largest number of graduates. Women comprised 530 graduates, or 58.3 percent of the class, while men made up 379, or 41.7 percent. Mr. Kerkulah mentioned that the Academy's reach extends beyond Monrovia, with some online students visiting the office for the first time for the ceremony.
Minister Kruah emphasized the importance of harnessing Liberia's youthful population. With a median age of about 19, Liberia has approximately 5.5 million people, with three in four being young. She noted that one in every 4,400 young Liberians graduated in the hall that morning, which is about 0.02 percent of the country's youth. The minister stressed that delaying youth development has a double cost: lost talent and skills imported from abroad.
Minister Kruah shared her experience of traveling to all 15 counties, meeting young people, and finding them to be "sharp, curious, and restless to build something." However, she noted that there are few structures in place to develop and carry them into work or enterprise. She used the physics term entropy to describe how energy is scattered, with some leaving the country, turning into frustration, or being left to luck. The minister emphasized that no nation should plan its future on luck.
The minister cited examples of countries that have taken different paths to prosperity. Qatar invested its gas surplus in universities and training, while the United Arab Emirates diversified its economy. Botswana used diamond revenue to develop its people, and Singapore focused on training people for targeted industries. Minister Kruah noted that Liberia can be built on both its natural resources and its young people. She urged Gonet's leadership to go beyond attendance and become a model that the government can replicate and scale.
Minister Kruah outlined her ministry's ten-year vision, *PATHWAYS: Rooting and Rising Liberia’s Youth*. The plan focuses on evidence, design, and foresight to prepare young people for the economy of 2035. The ministry aims to partner with institutions like Gonet to follow young people from training into work. One of PATHWAYS' pillars, the Pathway Framework, aims to build an ecosystem that moves young Liberians from exclusion to agency, from training into work, and from ideas into enterprises.
Key points
- Minister Kruah challenges Gonet Academy to grow into a national development structure.
- Gonet Academy has produced over 5,000 alumni since its establishment in 2021.
- Liberia's Youth and Sports Ministry has a ten-year vision to prepare young people for the economy of 2035.
