World University Rankings: The African Performance.

The Education of a country in the 21st Century will greatly impact on the development of said country. Africa having metamorphosed from a colonial affiliate has progressed to quasi-democratic economies where capitalism rules and asset liquidation is the order.

Many times has this rich continent produced promising and liberation oriented persons. The National Geographic has several documentaries evidencing the role of the west (America and cronies) in assassinating, toppling or crippling (corrupting and sabotaging followers) of such persons. For Example, Patrice Lumumba, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Kwame Nkrumah, Oliver Tambo. It is a known fact that the unity of Africa will result in one strong continent capable of ruling the world. Given that this great continent has been subjected to several rules of tyranny and brutalities by the so called Western Powers, why would they not seek to ensure that it never unites? After all they have seen what African Revenge is like on an Africa-to-Africa correlation. Note I am no conspiracy theorist but some actions beg for questions and these questions need answering. But I digress. This piece is on Education and not Economic Politics

I chanced on the World University Rankings for 2012/2013. Africa is only represented by two countries South Africa and Egypt. I was a bit surprised after all in a recent publication, I was informed that Kumasi Polytechnic was well ranked internationally and top in Ghana, 3rd in Africa. Also I knew University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology had good placements in the international rankings. Now just before you get ahead of yourself and jump on the "western world haters train" please note that all these rankings where Ghana or African Tertiary Education Institutions have placed appreciably are based on web presence. In practice then our universities are like pin-up gals who spend all day tweeting and facebooking just for popularity and not substance.

The Ranking Exercise undertaking by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings powered by Thomson Reuters are the only global university performance tables to judge world class universities across all of their core missions - teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The top universities rankings employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available, which are trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments.

In a country where our average Tertiary Institutional publication is 20 per year (for reputable peer reviewed journals) and this even includes books one cannot fault such a ranking for not placing any Ghanaian Institution. Don’t get me wrong, Ghanaian Academicians of this era do publish, oh yes they do. The problem is they publish in Institutionally Self Established Journals. The articles are not subjected to stringent peer review. Editors for fear of being tagged “enemies of progress” allow shoddily put together articles to be published. KNUST has a term “2+1+3 Professor”.

In South Africa, the funding of a university is based on performance. In Ghana, the funding of a university is based on strike. Thus there is no correlation between funding needs and institutional mandates or performance.

If we as a country are to develop as we seek, we need to first of all have a properly coordinated educational setup. The United Kingdom, whom most Commonwealth Affiliates seek to emulate have retained the same educational structure for almost 500yrs however Ghana, has had several reforms and one Government White Paper which serves only as a reference material for academic writing rather than policy guide or practice guide. Performance Budgeting may be the way for Ghana and Africa as a whole. The Question is will the World Bank (USA BANK for Controlling Africa and Asia) allow the leaders of our country to engage such? I doubt it; for the strength of bank lies in its ability to engage paying borrowers. We may not be able to pay our debts, but we can always mortgage our resources after all batter trade is still valid.