Ashesi University: Ghana Laboratory of Tomorrow

Ashesi University, which won the Wise Prize for Education, offers its students a way of teaching like no other: invest collectively on projects, to solve the issues of their country.

Patrick Awuah, former Ghanaian manager of the US giant Microsoft, and recipient of the Wise Prize for Education 2017, in 2002, landed in the small town of Berekuso, north of Accra (Ghana), to build a private university.

Fifteen years later, an island of 40 hectares with laboratories, library, infirmary, a campus full of terraces and foosballs where 60% of the nine hundred students live. The cost of studies is $ 9,000 tuition (including insurance and housing). On the other hand, a little more than half of the students are scholarship holders, thanks to the support of the MasterCard Foundation.

The name, Ashesi, means “beginning” in Akan language. The logo, meanwhile, refers to Akan symbols. The architecture is inspired by traditional West African family classes, and the quotes of Ghanaian figures that adorn the buildings.

Curriculum and teaching style by like others

In order to inculcate the same vision to all, some courses are compulsory from the first year of study. For example, that of “foundations for design and entrepreneurship”. Students have the choice of six courses, all in four years: business administration, information systems management, computer science, computer engineering, electrical and electronic engineering and mechanical engineering. 20% of them are from abroad. The university brings together students from several African countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“Here, no notebooks or pens, everyone brings their laptop”. “Each team chooses at the beginning of the year an existing problem in Ghana and has two semesters to find a solution that could help to solve it. In the end, everyone will present their projects to the entire university. Only fifteen of them will be selected and will receive funding from the university foundation to turn their project into a real enterprise. (Hiickmat Nasarah Abdulai, professor and entrepreneur)

In Ashesi, rather than giving students a protocol to ask them to follow him, they are asked to propose, to think, to comment. Graduates now have a good reputation in Ghana. 90% of them find a job within six months of graduation, according to the institution’s statistics.

 

Source: Lemonde