Whenever I drive through some of our public universities, particularly those outside Accra, I am struck by a disturbing contradiction: these institutions with large populations, located in regions rich in raw materials and surrounded by skilled artisans and small-scale industries, remain visibly underdeveloped, deprived, and utterly dependent. They do not produce much for themselves, and worse, they do not seem to see the need to. Let us take the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana’s premier institution for science, technology, and innovation. With over 85,000 students, sprawling departments in engineering, applied sciences, art, agriculture, and architecture, and a location in the craft and industry-rich Ashanti region, one would expect this university to be a hotbed of functional innovation, a self-sustaining ecosystem, and a driver of local economic transformation.
