The Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has called on African leaders to consider rolling out policies and programmes that could transform their economies through education.
He explained that to improve the African economy, there was the need for various governments to consider home-grown policies tailored to meet specific needs of their countries as well as meeting the international market needs.
Dr Adutwum made the call when he made remarks at a dinner after the closing session of the one-day World Bank Ministerial meeting on Education for Western and Central African countries held on Monday.
In attendance were Finance and Education Ministers from 22 Western and Central African countries who were in Accra to discuss and adopt a new educational strategy being promoted by the World Bank to enhance learning outcomes.
The dinner was used to share experiences and best practices, success stories by some of the Finance and Education Ministers and other participants apart from socialising.
He recounted the huge investment the government had made in the nation's education sector, especially the Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector, with the sole aim of equipping the youth with the requisite skills and knowledge to support the manpower needs of the country.
The Education Minister explained that to ensure that African countries move out of poverty and foreign donor dependency, there was the need for governments to enhance the educational development of their people to enable the majority of its populace to be economically viable to support their economic growth.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"We cannot continue doing the old things and expect to get new results, but we should rather up our game and do more to transform our economies," He stated.
Again, Dr Adutwum said, "the best days for Africa are not behind us but ahead of us. Let us, therefore, forge ahead in unity and work towards revamping our economies through the transformation of our education policies".
The Education Minister stated that the future generation would not forgive the current leadership of African countries if things go wrong as it behoved on the leaders to get the best policies that could transform African economies.
He charged the leaders to have a critical look at their education systems to ensure that it aligned with the 4th industrial revolution for socio-economic transformation.
