Africa needs more relevant education – Spio-Garbrah

Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, the Minister of Trade and Industry says Africa’s educational system needs radical overhauling if its University graduates are to readily find employment.

Dr Spio-Garbrah was speaking in Dakar, Senegal, at the three-day African Higher Education Summit, attended by some 800 ministers, ambassadors, university vice chancellors and professors, educational planners, as well as officials of major multilateral and bilateral institutions and non-governmental organizations.

Opened by Senegal’s President; Macky Sall, and attended by AU Commission President Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the Summit also received a keynote address from UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.

A statement issued to the GNA by Nana Akrasi Sarpong, the acting Director of Communication at the Ministry, said Dr. Spio-Garbrah, who spoke on the subject “Business, Higher Education and Employability” told the audience that the vacuum in relevant practical knowledge was because the education most African intellectuals and professionals received were totally unrelated to the natural resources around them and the fundamentals of their country’s economic production.

He stated that the same general ignorance applied to simple processes such as the conversion of tomatoes into paste, cassava into starch, or cotton into textiles.

The former Education Minister was of the view that until African countries got help from their own industrialists to change the curricula of their schools, especially in the secondary and tertiary sector, Africa will continue to produce graduates who will find a hard time finding jobs or starting their own businesses.

He disclosed that having been Minister of Education and now working as Minister of Trade and Industry, he had become keenly aware of the total disconnect between what most African economies need and the knowledge content of graduates, most African schools and colleges were producing.

He stated that a three-way consultation needed to be held urgently between governments, industry and academia to introduce a whole new set of relevant knowledge into the education curriculum, to ensure that graduates could become more employable or could begin their own businesses.

“While governments, academia and the private sector could do a lot to bridge the yawning knowledge gap that made many graduates unemployable, there was a role for non-governmental organisations, such as the African Business Centre for Developing Education (ABCDE).

Organisations like ABCDE could be among agencies that could initiate and manage a range of programmes to bring professionals and industrialists into classroom to help change the limited range of knowledge content most students are exposed to.

Through internships, attachments, career counseling and guidance, industrial days, excursions, mentorships and other interventions, it was possible for entities such as ABCDE to bring the world of business and industry closer to classrooms,” Dr Spio-Garbrah urged.

Other Ghanaian officials who attended the Summit were the Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa, who spoke on “Higher Education and Gender”; Prof Clifford Tagoe, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, who addressed the subject of “Differentiation and Diversification”; Dr Patrick Awuah, President of Ashesi University, who moderated a session on “Investment in African Higher Education”; and Prof. Ernest Aryeeteh, Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, who spoke on the subject of “Quality, Excellence and Relevance.”