Gov’t supporting, perpetuating dependent graduates – AUCC President

President of the African University College (AUCC), Professor Abeku Blankson, has expressed his worry over Ghana’s educational system producing dependent and non-functioning university graduates.

In an interview on the Transformation Agenda Series show on Class FM last Saturday, he revealed that Ghana’s educational system is raising an army of graduates who have no skill and can neither function in the industry when given the opportunity.

“We are creating unemployed graduates and this has happened from time immemorial. The consequences are what we are seeing and we have a lot of them who cannot function in the society, in industry, so yes, the gap is wide,” he said.

According to him, the dependent mindset of graduates is a result of lack of accountability by the system and students.

“We have dependent people who have dependent mindset and our educational system and the whole system is supporting that and perpetuating that act so these two factors are even in themselves very… and our educational systems are not accountable,” he noted.

Asked what could be the cause of high unemployment and graduate dependency rate in Ghana, he explained that free education was the cause.

“They are supposed to come out and become independent, be on their own but they are not. It stems from the very basic, this is broad to me, the very basics of our educational system where everything is free. Everything is free meaning that, you are also teaching people to become dependent. Whenever you pay for things, you value it more and you work hard because you know what you paid for. You also demand accountability because you paid for it”.