In recent years, Ghana has made a deliberate effort to project itself as a cultural and creative hub. From Year of Return and Beyond the Return to the establishment of the Creative Arts Agency and renewed conversations around cultural tourism, the message from policymakers is clear: the creative economy matters.
Yet, beneath the branding and festivals lies an uncomfortable truth. Ghana’s tertiary education system.
The engine that should be producing skilled human capital for this sector is largely disconnected from the creative economy it is expected to serve.
Except for institutions such as the School of Performing Arts of The University of Ghana, the University of Media, Arts and Communication – Institute of Film and Television, formerly known as National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI), and a few private training schools like GH Media School, most public universities, technical universities, and colleges still treat creative disciplines as peripheral.
They exist, often buried within departments of arts or communication studies, but rarely as deliberately structured pipelines into the creative industries. This gap is becoming more costly by the year. Ghana’s creative sector is already contributing meaningfully to employment, particularly among young people. Music, film, radio, television, fashion, digital content creation, advertising, photography, and live events sustain thousands of livelihoods.
It is important to note that many of them are informal, precarious, and undercapitalised. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, and global streaming services have lowered entry barriers, but they have also raised the bar for quality, professionalism, and technical competence. The irony is that while Ghanaian creatives are increasingly visible globally, many are self-taught or trained outside the formal education system.
Filmmakers learn editing on YouTube. Radio producers acquire digital skills on the job. Content creators master algorithms through trial and error. This resourcefulness is impressive, but it is not a strategy for national development. Ghana cannot scale up its creative industry on hustle alone. Compare this with what is happening elsewhere.
Nigeria’s Nollywood, now one of the largest film industries in the world, benefits from specialised film schools, private academies, and university programmes that increasingly integrate production, business and distribution.
South Africa’s creative education ecosystem links universities directly to film studios, broadcasters and global productions. In the United Kingdom, creative industries are treated as a serious economic sector, backed by structured education, innovation funding and export support.
Ghana risks being left behind not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of systems. Most tertiary institutions still operate with curricula designed for an analogue era. Media and communication programmes remain overly theoretical. Students graduate with degrees but limited exposure to industry-standard equipment, production workflows, intellectual property management, or digital monetisation models.
Meanwhile, the creative economy now demands skills in post-production, animation, sound engineering, content strategy, audience analytics, copyright law, platform economics, and emerging technologies like artificial
intelligence. The facilities gap is just as glaring. You cannot train filmmakers without functional studios. You cannot train sound engineers without modern audio labs.
You cannot prepare digital creators without reliable broadband, editing suites and software. Yet many institutions still rely on outdated infrastructure, even as they churn out graduates expected to compete in a global market. This mismatch feeds directly into Ghana’s youth unemployment challenge. Each year, thousands of graduates leave tertiary institutions with qualifications that do not align with fast-growing sectors of the economy.
The creative industry struggles to find adequately trained professionals, forcing employers to retrain recruits or outsource skills altogether. If Ghana is serious about unlocking the creative economy, tertiary institutions must move from the margins to the centre of the strategy. Curriculum reform must be intentional and industry-led. Creative programmes should be interdisciplinary by design, blending creativity with technology,
entrepreneurship and law.
A music student should understand royalties and distribution. A film student should understand financing and global markets. A fashion student should understand branding, exports and intellectual property. Investment in facilities must follow. Public universities and technical institutions should prioritise creative infrastructure just as they do science labs and engineering workshops. Strategic partnerships with media houses, telecom companies, production firms and digital platforms can help bridge funding gaps while ensuring relevance.
Industry integration must go beyond short internships. Practitioners should co-design courses, teach modules and assess student work. Learning should reflect real production environments, not just lecture halls. Faculty development is equally critical. Creative industries evolve rapidly. Without continuous exposure to industry practice and global trends, lecturers cannot equip students for today’s realities, let alone tomorrow’s opportunities.
Finally, campuses should become creative ecosystems. Innovation hubs, incubators and creative enterprise
centres can help students transform ideas into viable businesses. This is where education translates into jobs, exports and national income. Ghana has already done the hard part, which is establishing itself as a cultural brand and creative destination. What remains is the less glamorous but more important work of building human capital. The global demand for African stories, sounds, and aesthetics is growing.
The question is whether Ghana will supply that demand with well-trained professionals or watch others do it better. Creative education is no longer a luxury or an artistic indulgence. It is an economic imperative. And until our tertiary institutions reflect that reality, Ghana’s creative potential will remain underdeveloped, underpaid
and underutilised. The question remains: are the curricula of our tertiary institutions in sync with the new realities of the creative economy?
By: Frema Adunyame
Broadcast Journalist
Head of Events & Partnerships
Channel One TV and Citi FM
X: @fremaadunyame
