Rate of students leaving to study outside alarming – Professor Yankah

The Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah has described as alarming the rate of Ghanaian students exiting the country to study abroad.

This according to him, is because the episode leaves a huge gap within Ghana’s educational system which tends to hinder economic growth.

Currently over 3,111 Ghanaian students have enrolled in more than 630 tertiary institutions across the United States, making Ghana the third-largest sender of students from Africa, after Nigeria.

Although, the country’s Universities attracts some 20,000 students from other African countries annually, Professor Yankah maintains that the ratio is highly imbalanced, and needs addressing.

Speaking at a seminar between delegates from the University of Bradford, UK and academic stakeholders held in Accra, today, the minister of state said more must be done to balance the status quo.

“If you look at the flow of student traffic from one direction to the other, the traffic has not been as one would have expected. We have many more of our students, colleague lecturers, etc. moving in the direction of Europe and America, more than you have theirs moving in.

For every 20 or so students that go to Europe and America, we have maybe one or two coming to Ghana or Nigeria for that matter any African country,” he added.

Professor Yankah who has also served as Pro-vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana and the President of the Central University (CUC) further urged the youth and foreign students to disregard the assertion that African education system has little to offer unlike the European ones.

“Whereas you have a substantial number of Ghanaians going to Europe and America for their PHD, masters and others, the number of those from Europe coming to do same here is zero.

We have a number of International students all over the country particularly in the University of Ghana that is just about 4%. A close analysis of the number of students that come here has also revealed that many are here on short term basis or just for three to four months research programs or in fulfillment of various memorandum of understanding (MoU) that require exchange of visits.”

On his part, the vice chancellor for University of Bradford, Professor Brian Cantor said the institution was open to partnering with other institutions here in Ghana to give interested personnel an opportunity to explore and operate outside their comfort zone.