Funmi Ogundare
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, has known as on African universities to overhaul their instructing strategies and curricula to put together graduates for a quickly altering world formed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation and rising societal challenges.
She said that increased training establishments should transfer past conventional instructing and examination strategies to prioritise crucial considering, creativity, moral judgment, problem-solving and sensible utility of data.
She stated this in her keynote tackle on the International Week of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), themed, ‘Re-imagining Pedagogy and Teaching for Higher Education in the 21st Century’.
Amfo argued that universities should rethink their objective and the capabilities they search to develop in college students, reasonably than focusing totally on using expertise in instructing.
According to her, the fast development of AI, local weather change, public well being threats, migration, demographic shifts and geopolitical uncertainties are remodeling skilled fields sooner than universities can replace their curricula.
She famous that African universities face the extra problem of responding to these adjustments whereas addressing longstanding improvement issues, widening entry to training and managing restricted assets.
“Before asking how we should teach, we should ask, what is higher education for in the 21st century? What should it enable our graduates to become? And what responsibilities do universities have to the societies that sustain them?” she requested.
The VC acknowledged that college training remained an necessary pathway to skilled employment, social mobility and mental improvement, notably in African societies the place households usually make vital sacrifices to educate their kids.
While stressing that employability remained necessary, the VC maintained that universities should additionally domesticate mental independence, adaptability, cultural understanding and a dedication to the general public good.
She stated graduates ought to find a way to interrogate data, examine issues, develop options, work with folks of various views and proceed studying past formal training.
“For African universities, there is an additional responsibility. Our institutions must help produce the knowledge, leadership, and capabilities needed to address the continent’s challenges, from health systems and food security to environmental sustainability, inequality, democratic governance, and technological inclusion,” she harassed.
In her remarks, UNILAG Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, known as on universities to rethink conventional instructing strategies and embrace progressive, technology-driven approaches that can equip college students with the talents required to thrive in a quickly altering world.
Ogunsola who declared open the college’s International Week, stated increased establishments should transfer past typical lectures and rote studying to instructing strategies that promote crucial considering, creativity, innovation, problem-solving and adaptableness.
She stated the rising affect of AI and different rising applied sciences had basically modified the upper training panorama, requiring universities to rethink how they educate, assess and certify college students.
According to her, the query is not whether or not college students have entry to AI instruments, however how establishments can be certain that studying stays significant and prepares graduates for the calls for of the office.
“Our students have access to information on the internet and AI tools that can summarise, calculate, translate and even draft essays in seconds. The question therefore is no longer whether these tools exist, but what it now means to teach, assess and certify learning in their presence,” she stated.
Ogunsola famous that employers have been more and more in search of graduates with competencies past the flexibility to recall info and figures, together with AI and machine studying literacy, analytical and significant considering, problem-solving, adaptability, efficient communication, emotional intelligence, creativity and innovation.
Also in her remarks, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Nigeria, Ms Elsie Gyekyewaa Attafuah, urged Nigerian universities to reform their pupil evaluation techniques, school promotion standards and analysis funding mechanisms to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship and sensible options to nationwide challenges.
She said that universities should align their institutional incentives with the calls for of the long run to be certain that investments in infrastructure translate into significant innovation and improvement.
She harassed the necessity for establishments to reward progressive considering, interdisciplinary collaboration and analysis that demonstrates public worth, warning that with out deliberate adjustments to current educational constructions, universities danger investing in new services whereas persevering with to reward typical approaches that will not adequately promote innovation.
“There is a risk of placing new facilities within systems that continue to reward the same old ways of working,” she said.
To illustrate how universities might encourage innovation, Attafuah cited University College London, which recognises enterprise and exterior engagement in its educational profession frameworks, and the University of Cambridge, the place inventors and their departments share income generated from analysis licensing.
She charged Nigerian universities to think about comparable approaches by giving larger recognition to innovation, interdisciplinary analysis and initiatives that translate educational discoveries into sensible advantages for society.
She additionally advocated the availability of small, accessible grants to allow college students and school members to experiment, take a look at concepts and enhance their options.
According to her, “universities should explore ways to support innovation hubs and other platforms where ideas developed through original research could be tested and refined.”
She added that rigorous testing and a transparent contribution to data ought to stay central to educational analysis, together with doctoral research.
“The opportunity is to align our incentives with the future. We want our universities to create while upholding academic rigour,” she said.
