Ghanaian Professor appointed to Yidan Prize Advisory Committee

A Ghanaian Professor of International Education and Development, Professor Kwame Akyeampong, has been appointed a member of the Yidan Prize Advisory Committee.

His appointment, which took effect on January 1, 2025, is expected to end on December 31, 2027.

The Yidan Prize Foundation

The Yidan Prize is a global, inclusive education award which recognises changemakers, who inspire progress in education for a better world.

It offers the highest prizes not only to education research in the world, but also the best education research for development.

It is the World’s highest accolade in education, championing changemakers whose work is future oriented, innovative, transformative and sustainable.

Since its inception in 2017, 19 distinguished laureates have so far won the prize in either Education Development or Education Research.

The Foundation typically has two committees: The Awarding Committee and the Advisory Board Committee.

The awarding committee looks around the world for the best education researchers whose work strengthens teaching and learning through a deeper understanding of learning sciences or effective education policy, and also the best researchers who are advancing practice through innovative ideas and interventions that make quality education more accessible to all.

The Advisory Board Committee, on the other hand, closely examines the work of the foundation, and designs strategies to help increase its impact on education around the world. 

Prof. Kwame Akyeampong

Prof. Akyeampong, a distinguished international education and development professor with academic career spanning over 30 years, comes to the committee with a wealth of knowledge in international education and development issues.

A Senior Fulbright Research Scholar at the Georgia State University and a Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin Germany, Prof. Akyeampong has published a number of research work on education and led large-scale impact evaluation studies on education interventions in several African countries.

Prof. Akyeampong, who began his academic career in Ghana at the University of Cape Coast in 1989, later took up appointment at the University of Sussex where he became a Professor of International Education and Development in 2013.

He moved to the Open University in 2020 to become the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Development (CSGD).

Prof. Akyeampong served and continue to serve on various international boards and committees at the highest levels including: visiting Professor at the Centre for the Study of International Co-operation in Education at the Hiroshima University, Japan, and more recently as a Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic from his base in the UK, Prof. Akyeampong believed his appointment was an opportunity to draw attention to some of the innovative research in Africa transforming the lives of students on the continent.

He said there were success stories in the educational sector in Africa, but “what we have achieved and what we do in education is often not given the visibility that I think it deserves.

“African education is often constructed in very negative terms and as a result, its successes go unnoticed,” Prof Akyeampong lamented.

He said there was a lot happening on the African continent, “but often, we don't have a voice that sits on some of these global panels to highlight Africans' achievements and concerns.

“So, my appointment to the advisory board, really, is an opportunity for me to represent, if you like, the African experience of education, to bring its impact to the attention of the global research community and identify African researchers whose work is changing the lives of children on the continent,” he stated.