ECOWAS Parliamentarian demands curriculum overhaul to tackle unemployment

The Chairman of the ECOWAS Parliament’s Committee on Education, Science, and Culture, George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has called for an urgent and radical realignment of educational curricula across West Africa. He warned that the current system is producing graduates who are unfit for the job market. Ricketts-Hagan made the remarks on the sidelines of the joint […]

The Chairman of the ECOWAS Parliament’s Committee on Education, Science, and Culture, George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has called for an urgent and radical realignment of educational curricula across West Africa.

He warned that the current system is producing graduates who are unfit for the job market.

Ricketts-Hagan made the remarks on the sidelines of the joint delocalised meeting of the ECOWAS Parliament’s joint committees in Lomé, Togo.

The meeting is being held under the theme, “Strengthening curriculum alignment with socio-economic needs of the ECOWAS Region.”

Ricketts-Hagan argued that university courses are not designed to equip students who are also community members with the specific skills that industries require.

“We are not producing the workforce that industries need,” Ricketts-Hagan stated. “We need to redesign our whole curriculum so that when people go to the university or tertiary institutions, they can read courses that are relevant to the job market in an African context.”

He emphasised that this misalignment is a continent-wide issue, but particularly acute within the West African sub-region.

“For us, we are trying to look at doing that realignment to make education relevant and improve productivity at the workplace, which will help grow the economies of our member states,” he added.

He stressed the need to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application.

“We need to look at the practical ways of the theories. We have to make education beneficial for the workplace. That is the reason why we are here: how do we ‘practicalise’ the base?”

Ricketts-Hagan pointed to entrepreneurship education as a key area for reform, suggesting that students should be trained to become job creators rather than just job seekers.