At the moment, to become a professor in Ghana, you need to do one thing very well: publish.
Publish 15 papers. Publish 20 papers. Publish in journals that nobody in Ghana reads, in America and Europe.
It does not matter if your research has solved no problem in Ghana. It does not matter if no farmer, no nurse, no welder at Suame Magazine has ever used your research. As long as Scopus says you have published, Ghana will call you Professor and give you promotion.
That is why we have many professors, but few solutions. Many titles, but little impact.
If we want to change Ghana, we must change what we call promotion.
WHAT IS THE POINT OF A PROFESSOR WHOSE COMMUNITY IS STILL POOR?
Look at this:
A lecturer at UDS does brilliant research on how to reduce post-harvest losses of tomatoes at Pwalugu using solar dryer. He publishes it in International Journal of Food Science. He gets promoted to Senior Lecturer. But the tomato farmer at Pwalugu still dries tomatoes on the bare floor and loses 50%.
Who benefited? The lecturer. Not the community.
A lecturer at KNUST designs a low-cost incubator for poultry farmers. He wins award in Germany. He becomes Associate Professor. But the poultry farmer at Dormaa still imports incubator from China for GH¢20,000.
We have reversed the purpose of university. University was supposed to serve community. Now community serves university – to give data for promotion.
WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES DO
In Rwanda, you cannot become professor if your research is only on paper. You must show linkage – how many cooperatives adopted it? How many jobs created?
In South Africa, their promotion criteria has what they call “Community Engagement” and “Industry Linkage” – 30% of your promotion score.
In China, if your engineering research is not used by a factory, it is not research. It is essay.
In Ghana, 90% of promotion is paper. 0% is community impact.
WHAT GHANA MUST DO NOW – NEW PROMOTION CRITERIA
If Ghana wants to look smarter, National Council for Tertiary Education (GTEC) and all universities must change the promotion criteria from this year.
This is what promotion should be based on:
1. COMMUNITY IMPACT – 40%
Before you become Senior Lecturer or Professor, you must show: My research has solved whose problem?
Did farmers in your district adopt your seed? Bring evidence – letter from District Director of Agriculture, pictures, video.
Did your water filter reduce cholera in your community? Bring report from Ghana Health Service.
Did your research train 50 women? Bring their names.
If your research is still on shelf, you are not ready for promotion. Go and make it work on the ground.
2. INDUSTRY LINKAGE – 30%
How many industries are using your idea? How many internships did you create for students through your linkage? How many times did Suame Magazine or Kantanka or a local factory call you to solve their problem?
If you are a business lecturer, how many SMEs did you help formalize? If you are engineering, how many machines did you fabricate with local artisans?
A professor without industry friend is just a classroom teacher.
3. PUBLICATION THAT SOLVES GHANA PROBLEM – 20%
We still need papers, but papers that matter. Not “Assessment of this and that.” We need papers that propose solutions to galamsey, to plastic waste, to BECE failure, to maternal death.
And papers must include a 2-page policy brief in simple English and Twi summary, so that MMDCE can understand.
4. TEACHING AND MENTORSHIP – 10%
How many students did you mentor to create jobs, not just to get jobs?
If we do this, three things will happen:
First, lecturers will leave their offices and go to the market, to the farm, to the factory. Research will leave library and go to community.
Second, graduate unemployment will reduce, because students will be trained on real problems with real industry link, not theory from 1970.
Third, Ghana will stop importing solutions. Because the solution will already be working in Pwalugu, in Asafo Market, in Suame.
GTEC must act. University Councils must act.
Because at the moment, we are promoting people who publish Ghana’s poverty, but not people who reduce Ghana’s poverty.
And until we change that, we will have professors on paper, and poverty on the ground.
Alexander Afriyie, supervising editor, ghanacrimereport.com and ghanatalk.com