Africa Centres of Excellence a success – Dr Appiah

The African Higher Education Centres of Excellence (ACE) initiative has been a resounding success, the Chairman and Co-founder of Africa Network Incorporation, Dr Kojo Appiah, has said.

“I think we should be grateful. But let me say this, just so our collective heads don't get too big, let's remember there's a lot to improve upon and there's still a lot of work to do,” he said at the closing ceremony of the ACE@10 Conference in Accra.

There are more than 80 African Centres of Excellence in over 50 participating universities, with a presence in 20 countries.

The three-day conference was on the theme: “A Decade of Impact, Innovation and Excellence.”

It was attended by Ministers of Education and Finance, researchers, development partners, scholars and other stakeholders from across the continent.

Going forward, Dr Appiah said it was his opinion that African higher education could and should focus research and innovation efforts towards solving the big and complex global development challenges.

Problems

“So some of these big complex problems may be environmental challenges, such as the threat of climate change, which is probably the biggest challenge of our times and beyond, which has a potential negative outsized impact on the African continent in particular.

Some of those challenges that pertain to Africa would be food security in the context of agriculture.

Another of those challenges, he said, would be around global health issues such as pandemics like COVID-19.

Those are some of the pressing issues, the big and harrowing complex challenges that I think African higher education should focus research and innovation on.

“So I believe that we need big and innovative research ideas to solve big challenges.

“Our approach should be revolutionary instead of evolutionary. We need to leap instead of crawl. We have already learned how to crawl. Now we need to leap,” he said.

African higher education, he said could and should leverage research and innovation together with knowledge and skills development in cutting-edge technologies.

He cited technologies such as synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, advanced materials, drones, robotics, quantum computing, blockchain and cloud computing. 

Technologies

“These are the so-called deep technologies and African higher education needs to leverage these to catalyse the exponential growth of innovation-driven entrepreneurship, private enterprise, companies and job creation.

The focus should be on using innovation-driven work and effort to increase the level of entrepreneurship, private enterprise, creating companies and creating jobs,” he emphasised.

In his closing remarks, the Minister of Education, Dr Clement Apaak, charged African countries to step up their investment in research, especially in areas aligned with the continent’s development.

He said they must also scale up advanced training programmes to meet the evolving demands of their respective economies.

"Furthermore, we need to expand our innovative ecosystems to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and creativity to further accelerate our progress, drive economic growth, improve livelihoods and enhance our global competitiveness.

"The continent is counting on all of us, as policymakers, university leaders, centre leaders, development partners and stakeholders of African higher education, to implement strategies and roadmaps," Dr Apaak said.