Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai
A call has been made to all stakeholders in the tertiary education space to make the West African sub-region the most attractive destination for tertiary educational delivery.
To attain this, there was the need for a concerted effort from all stakeholders to collaborate, through regional integration and most importantly collaborative technology within its collaborative architect to advance this quality initiative.
The Director General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai lauded the leadership of the Association of West African Universities (AWAU) for its role in supporting the development of tertiary education in the sub-region.
He was speaking at the 9th AWAU confab 2024 and the 11th annual general meeting of the group.
The three-day conference, themed, “Promoting quality tertiary education in West Africa through collaboration, regional integration and technology” brought together all stakeholders in the tertiary education space in the West African sub-region.
Some of the issues discussed were regional integration and educational curriculum, technology and educational transformation, partnerships, collaboration and inter-university linkages, regional integration and quality tertiary education, globalisation and quality tertiary education among others.
Citing an example for the sub-region, Prof. Jinapor recounted how Ghana has enjoyed some relative peace and stability in the sub-region over the past decades, registered some enviable democratic record, exhibited adequate energy supply and has also proven to be the preferred destination for foreign settlement.
Prof. Ishaq Oleyede, Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) in Nigeria, in an address read for him, indicated that the West African sub-region happens to be among regions where education started, dating back several decades.
He stated that universities in the sub-region were among the best in the world due to the quality of faculty and programmes they run.
Prof. Oleyede added his voice to the call for collaboration among tertiary institutions in the sub-region towards research, conferences and other policies which could help promote the development of their programmes for the development of their national economies.
The Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, in an address read for him, also urged all local and foreign stakeholders to continue partnering with governments to get the best support in the areas of policy and other ways they could promote education development in their respective countries.
He urged the youth to strive to get the best education by choosing courses which have the potential towards the development of their countries and the rest of the world.
He was upbeat that the various interventions being churned out in the education sector would leapfrog the nation’s development.