Rebuilding our education system to power the digital economy: A call for radical rethinking (Part 1)

By Sammy CRABBE

Ghana stands at the cusp of transformation. We have flirted with the dream of becoming a digital powerhouse, and with the One Square Mile initiative, we now have a clear roadmap.

But let us be honest with ourselves—this roadmap cannot succeed without a serious, even radical, reimagining of our educational system.

Our current setup is not fit for purpose. It is a relic, designed for a different era, and has been weighed down by bureaucracy, inefficiency, and politics.

If Ghana is serious about competing in the 21st century, then we must start by confronting a hard truth: our education system is failing us.

Education is the engine of innovation, productivity, and national competitiveness. Yet in Ghana, that engine is sputtering.

How can we expect to build a knowledge-based economy when over 50percent of our education budget is consumed not by teaching or learning, but by administrative overhead—travel allowances, salaries for ministry staff, fleets of government-issued SUVs, and committee meetings that produce little substance?

This is not how knowledge economies are built. We must act decisively to redirect our resources, our focus, and our governance.

Let us begin by trimming the excess fat. The Ministry of Education should not be a bloated administrative structure drowning in paper and politics. Its role should be policy development and strategic oversight—not micromanagement.

Similarly, the Ghana Education Service (GES) must evolve from being a direct supervisor of education to a focused regulator—setting standards, monitoring compliance, and holding institutions accountable. Education should be left in the hands of those who know how to deliver it best: educators, innovators, and communities with a stake in outcomes, not careers in bureaucracy.

And here’s where we must be bold. Let us explore the idea of leasing some of these universities—e.g., Legon—as pilot projects to global consortia that include religious and academic institutions with a track record of running elite universities.

We can, for example, offer a 50-year lease for one U.S. dollar—yes, one dollar—on the condition that the winning consortium presents a detailed and credible plan showing how they will upgrade the institution’s infrastructure, faculty, and research capacity.

They must demonstrate how they will fund these improvements using the capital they would have otherwise used to build a new university of similar stature from scratch.

These should be institutions like the Catholic Church (which runs Notre Dame), the LDS Church (which operates Brigham Young University), the Methodist Church (with its long-standing network of universities), and the Ahmadiyyah movement (which runs several higher learning institutions globally).

Let them bring their standards, values, and administrative excellence to Ghana’s higher education sector. Let them compete—not based on ideology, but on proven capability and vision.

In return, they will be expected to invest heavily in upgrading facilities, paying globally competitive salaries to attract top faculty (including Ghanaians in the diaspora), and establishing transparent financial aid systems.

Yes, tuition may rise—but access will not be compromised. Here’s how: Government will use the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) and the savings it makes from trimming the bloated structures at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to support brilliant but needy students.

The universities will be tasked with identifying these students through rigorous, merit-based systems and administering the financial aid on government’s behalf.

In other words, government’s role will shift from direct management to strategic support. Rather than trying to run universities, it will fund access—ensuring that talented students, regardless of background, have the opportunity to benefit from world-class education in Ghana.

This is not a matter of religion or ideology. It is a matter of results. We are already losing our brightest minds to institutions abroad where they pay ten times more but get twenty times the value. Why not build such value here? Why not position Ghana as a net importer of global talent, research, and innovation?

But this will never happen until we stop politicizing education. It is no secret that many appointments to strategic education roles are based on party loyalty rather than professional competence. People who have never managed even a classroom find themselves appointed as CEOs of national educational agencies simply because they joined demonstrations, appeared on radio, or carried placards.

It is absurd. And yet we expect these institutions to function efficiently? We send people who have never created jobs for themselves to run agencies tasked with job creation—and then wonder why youth unemployment keeps rising.

We need to restore dignity to public service and respect to career professionals in our educational agencies. Politicians should serve in ministries as ministers or deputies.

But agencies must be staffed and led by those who understand their mission, have walked the path, and have earned the right to lead. If we don’t change this, the entire educational bureaucracy will soon resemble a political boot camp—bloated, directionless, and resistant to innovation.

Let’s build an economy in which politics is no longer the only path to prestige and opportunity. A country where young people aspire to build businesses, teach, research, invent, or lead industries—not just shout party slogans for a shot at a CEO position they have no qualifications for.

It begins with education. If we get that wrong, we get everything else wrong.

>>>the writer is a PhD candidate specializing in blockchains and decentralized finance at the University of Bradford. He holds an MBA in International Marketing from the International University of Monaco. Sammy was the first president of the Ghana Business Outsourcing Association and developed Africa’s first data entry operation and Ghana’s first medical transcription company. He can be reached via [email protected]

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