President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo has asked African countries to set their own priorities in the fight to educate their citizens.
Speaking to students and staff at the Princeton University in the United States at the start of his one week visit to the United States and Canada, President Akufo-Addo issued a strong message to African leaders.
“The provision of education for our young people should not become an ideological issue. We should never have to make a choice between basic education or higher education. We should never have to rely on the World Bank or any other institution to decide for us where the emphasis should be for us in our education needs.”
Speaking on the theme “The future is Africa: Translating vision into action, the president also used the speech to send a statement to his peers regarding the importance of education and how to fund it.
“Education is the key to our development and we must run our economies to fund the education of our children. We should not get into arguments with the so-called donor agencies about priorities. We have to set our own priorities and accept that we have to provide the funds to translate our plans into reality.”
The president’s speech also focused on graduate unemployment, the potential of AFCTA to set Africa on the track to prosperity as well as the digitisation of agriculture to deal with food security.
The speech was followed by a question and answer session where the president tackled questions on national health insurance, malaria eradication as well as improvement of regulations for progressive investor relations.
Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to speak at the Rutgers University in New Jersey on Saturday, September 21 before delivering a speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations on the September 25.
