By Kabuye Ronald
African Leadership University and other stakeholders have called for the re imagining of the education in African countries if the continent is to realize the desired social, political and economic development.
Speaking during the African Leadership University stakeholders meeting at Hotel Africana, Kampala, Clide Odhiambo, the country representative for the university in Uganda said that jointly reimagining of education will help Africa solve its pressing challenges.
Odhiambo said that the education system should be restructured in a way that it gives real work experience, makes one to be proactive, problem solver and a critical thinker which brings out the uniqueness of the person and thus makes person fit in all settings as it is the case at the African Leadership University.
The chief guest at the event Grace Muliisa, the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank Uganda Limited said that Africans urgently need to re-imagine its education so that involves digital transformation, prepares the students for the unprepared for emerging situation and also give them real work experience.
“We all know as Africans that pivoting the school system towards the new reality remains challenge simply because the education system never exposed us to technology before, it never exposes us to thinking differently, to having our own views, ability to challenge, and to rebuttal, the independence, freedom and environment to apply ourselves. It was totally different. “Said Grace Muliisa
She added that “for so long a diploma, a degree, a PHD was super important since it was the only way you could prove that you went to school, it defined success in education then but currently it’s no longer important on its own since the world now demands more than that. It demands skills that are technology complimentary, skills that require creativity, innovation and general problem solving skills since we live in a world of problems and so without that a person becomes irrelevant thus the old education system must be reimagined as the African Leadership University did.”
Ambassador Milton Kambula, the Global Peace Foundation chapter president said that Africa is heading into a world where a person needs to work for more than 15 companies to survive and thus Africans especially the young people should be so creative to be game changers.
He added that the education sector must produce a persons who is good communicator, a person who participates in all legal reforms and know the legal framework you operate in, a person who knows the global economy because the power of technology is going to enable everyone sale on the global market and the last one is to embrace and work towards having peace, have unity in diversity and dialogue will be a must.
