Ghanaian Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia on Monday urged governments of West and Central Africa to begin to use education as a critical lever for human capital and socioeconomic development.
Bawumia made this call in his keynote address during the launch of the World Bank’s regional education strategy 2022-2025 for Western and Central Africa.
Stressing the relationship between socioeconomic development and human capital is critical for the future of every country, he said more efforts are needed to rationalize the governance of education systems in many countries to achieve greater coherence, cooperation, and coordination.
He cited the example of Ghana, where the country’s policies on education access, quality, equity, relevance, skills acquisition, and education financing reflected “how it uses education as a lever for human capital development and socio-economic transformation.”
The vice president said Ghana had started implementing a vigorous technical and vocational education policy, which included a free technical and vocational education program and the introduction of a pre-engineering program for secondary school graduates with non-science backgrounds desirous of pursuing engineering at the tertiary level.
The World Bank-sponsored strategy covers 22 countries in West and Central Africa. The key highlights of the strategy include building a coalition on education and a movement for increased focus on quality education to promote human capital in the western and central regions in Africa. Enditem
