Professor Olusola Oyewole (left) President of AAU, reading the citation to be presented to President Akufo-Addo while Professor Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede looks on
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has entreated the Association of African Universities (AAU) to interact more with local industries on the continent.
He said such interactions will not only help African universities align their curricula to meet the demands of emerging local industries, but also prepare the students for the job market.
“In our current global dispensations where universities are becoming entrepreneurial to remain relevant, my humble plea to the AAU and its wide membership is to engage more with the private sector at the local, regional, continental and global level,” he admonished.
The president’s call falls in line with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 which advocates for innovativeness through collaborative partnerships between and among institutions of higher learning and with the private sector, policy makers, development partners and other external stakeholders.
President Akufo-Addo made this call at the 14th AAU General Conference and Golden Jubilee celebrations on the theme, “AAU@50: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Development in Africa.”
Opening the conference, President Akufo-Addo paid tribute to a few of the numerous Ghanaian academics who have played pivotal roles in the leadership and intellectual direction of the association, including the late Professor John Evans Fiifi Atta-Mills, former President of the Republic of Ghana, who gave the presidential assent in 2010 for the construction of the new AAU secretariat in Accra.
Nana Akufo-Addo also hailed AAU, which has grown its membership from 34 to 400 over a period of fifty years, for contributing to the intellectual leadership towards a unified Africa through academic programmes, particularly standing for and promoting higher education when international institutions, such as the World Bank, downplayed the role of higher education in favour of basic education.
He lamented the unchanged trajectory of higher education from what existed in the pre- and immediate post-colonial era in Africa.
President Akufo-Addo reiterated his earlier call for the triple helix of university-industry-government partnership to facilitate the progress of higher education on the continent.
Professor Etienne Ehouan Ehile, Secretary General of AAU, said the association has aligned itself with educational policies both continental and global to strengthen the quality assurance and harmonization of the diverse higher education system on the African continent.
“Our work with the World Bank is strengthening 22 African Centers of Excellence in West and Central Africa in the areas of teaching, research, collaboration, resource mobilization and infrastructure,” he said.
Professor Is-haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, former AAU President, in his lecture to commemorate the Golden Jubilee Anniversary of AAU, traced the history of the association from its humble beginnings to higher education in Africa.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri