Africa’s Education Must Be Relevant to The Job Market – Nana Addo

President Akufo-Addo has charged African countries to structure their education curricula to meet the current demands of the job market.

According to him, the technological world now demands a dynamic workforce, hence the need for appropriate education that will equip the continent’s youth with the requisite skills to be gainfully employed.

Speaking at the African Summit at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom, President Akufo-Addo said universities on the continent must interact often with the private sector to enable them to stay abreast with the dynamics of the job market.

“We need to make sure that the curricula we offer are relevant to the skill needs of the job market. Our products should have the transferable skill to enable them to cope with the realities of the modern day of the world of work which has embraced the digital revolution….Our universities have to engage more with the private sector,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo emphasized that African governments must not rely on foreign donors for ideas on what education their respective countries should focus on.

While noting the importance of education to African economies, he said the government must do whatever it takes to ensure that its youth are satisfactorily educated.

“The provision of education for our young people should not become an ideological tussle. We should never have to make a choice between basic education or higher education. We should never have to rely on the World Bank or any other institution to decide for us where the emphasis should be on our education needs,” he said.

“Education is the key to our development, and we must run our economies to be able to fund the education of our children. We should not get into arguments with donor agencies about our priorities. We must set our own priorities, and we must accept that we should provide the funds to translate our plans into reality,” he added.