Education in Africa: An Administrator's Perspective

Below are my remarks during launch of National 30 km Road Baton Relay at Accra Sports Stadium, Accra on 13th May 2016. The Baton Relay was launched by Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports (Republic of Ghana), Hon. Vincent Oppong Asamoah (on my right). Athletics have always been an essential component of a liberal education. Schools that offer more sports and field more successful teams produce higher test scores and graduation rates, research shows. There is a relatively consistent body of research showing that students who participate in athletics tend to fare significantly better both in school and in later life. Participating in sports, like playing in the school band or competing on the debate team, are cognitively and organizationally demanding activities that help convey self-discipline and leadership skills. This is especially true for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, it has also been found that schools that offer more sports and field more ...

Today, Africans are the architects of their development, not just beneficiaries. The new model for development  is focussing on partnerships — with African governments, businesses, universities and civil society. But Africa will continue to be held back if we do not immediately invest in research and development. It was agreed at the African Union Heads of State summit in 2006 that African governments should target 1% of their GDP spending on research and if that target is not met continent’s development will be stalled. We must join hands with strong and credible international partners to invest in local research. Without funding and the necessary regulatory environment and policies, the benefits of the scientific results emanating from research work won’t be harvested. As private university college we fully support the same and has already taken significant steps to catalyze the growth. Africa as a continent is growing with fast pace. Astute international in...

When it comes to information technology in Africa, this continent has an amazing ability to leapfrog. Forget old-school landlines and desktop computers. Many in sub-Saharan Africa have skipped directly to mobile devices. And while Africa, like other emerging markets, has been slow to embrace cloud computing, it is starting to take off here, with tech experts touting the cloud’s big and perhaps unseen potential. As per Len Weincier, founder of CloudAfrica, one of the biggest hurdles in widespread usage of cloud computing is a lack of knowledge about its benefits. But we must understand that Cloud computing is in fact most ideal for Africa, where there is little traditional internet infrastructure, unreliable electricity grids in many areas — making on-site storage impractical — and an ongoing boom in business and development. Taking back our memories to 2002, Ghana was having only 240,000 landlines and 300,000 cell phone users with a 20 million population. An author then wr...