Our system of education is not fit for purpose

Granted that universities are not factories (no one said that they were), what exactly is the point of producing research papers we all know will only end up gathering dust on shelves?

What stops our universities from setting up consultancy services like their counterparts in Europe and the USA?

Universities were established to solve problems peculiar to the societies in which they are located.

How are our universities in Africa helping us to solve our problems?

If we consider our politics, did our political scientists in Africa made any original contribution to our current system of governance? If not, why not? Are our economists the creators of the economic system we operate in Africa? Did African architects designed our houses to suit our local imperatives?

It is only in Africa that I hear that universities are not there to solve society’s problems.

I can cite the example of the Netherlands as one country where the universities busy themselves with solving the problems of society.

Examples: the University of Wageningen helped the tiny country to become the second biggest exporter of agric products.

The Technical University in Delft help in ensuring that the country remains among the leading technological countries in the world.

The last time I visited KNUST, I was aghast to see the gardeners going about their business with cutlasses and hoes!

The question on my mind was: what is the purpose of having a university of technology which cannot build a common lawnmower for itself?

………

I think that it is this type of mindset you expressed here that is really the problem in Africa.

Why can’t a university set up a consultancy service, say computer consultancy services, and offer its expertise to industries, earn some money, and expand into app development for example? It will not only generate income for the university, it will help students to get a hang on what to expect in real life outside the campus.

Why can’t the mechanical and the electrical engineering departments of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi offer their expertise to say Ghana Water, the ECG, mining companies etc and earn money?

Why can’t the agric departments in our universities create and sell high-yielding seeds? What stops the universities from developing useful tools that they can manufacture and sell?

Crying poverty will never help us! The universities have produced quite a number of graduates who are doing rather well financially, have our universities tried to call on them instead of throwing up their hands and waiting for government subventions?

We can also ask why the finance and the marketing departments of our universities not help the institutions to develop marketable products and services and raise the fundings?

We know that the government will never have enough money, so why wait for them before we begin to help ourselves!

Maybe our main problem is that we have people so conditioned to occupy positions in which they are contented to collect salaries without doing anything more strenuous than to whine and lament!

©️Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ

Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ is a writer and author