Former Education Minister Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has criticised some university programmes in Ghana, describing them as “useless” and arguing that they fail to prepare graduates for meaningful employment.
Speaking on the Konnected Minds podcast, Dr Adutwum accused some tertiary institutions of prioritising student enrolment over the country’s workforce needs, resulting in graduates earning what he called “a degree to nowhere.”
“You have done labour needs assessment of your country. You know that the country needs more engineers, they need more medical, they need more nurses,” he said. “If you don’t have a labour needs assessment that you are following, then what it means is that you are just educating everyone.”
“There are some university courses that are useless…
They just want to fill up the spaces!”
The former minister singled out programmes such as Development Studies at the University for Development Studies (UDS) and BA in Education Non-Teaching at the University of Ghana, arguing that they do not equip students with skills that meet labour market demands.
“When I was the minister, I challenged universities about that. I remember going to the New Year School and I spoke about we do not need anybody to offer courses called Development Studies to study development. No, and It was being offered at UDS,” he said.
Dr Adutwum recounted that following his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of UDS contacted him to say that a student had withdrawn from the Development Studies programme.
“I said it’s good for him, it’s good for him, it’s good for him, because you know and I know that that course is not taking the student anywhere,” he said.
He also questioned the value of Development Education programmes, arguing that graduates are left without clear career prospects.
“They have courses called Development Education. It doesn’t qualify the student to teach, and I don’t know what industry, what company is going to employ students who have done Development Education.”
Turning to the University of Ghana’s BA in Education Non-Teaching programme, Dr Adutwum said many graduates complete their national service only to face unemployment.
“They come and do their national service, and after national service, they are frustrated because nobody is hiring them. So university degree to nowhere,” he said.
According to Dr Adutwum, universities continue to offer such programmes primarily to boost enrolment and generate revenue.
“They are just filling up the spaces because they are coming and they are paying money to come, and the universities like it,” he said.
He called on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission to review and align university programmes with the country’s labour market needs, pointing to India’s information technology sector as an example of how strategic investment in relevant skills can drive economic growth.
“The police service needs them, the military needs them, so many companies. In case Ghanaian companies don’t need them, companies abroad need them, and they will stay in Ghana and work for those,” he said.
Dr Adutwum maintained that meaningful reforms are necessary if Ghana is to tackle graduate unemployment.
“If you don’t revamp the whole education system and do education to somewhere and not education to nowhere, you cannot confront and solve your graduate unemployment problem,” he added.
Watch the video below:
