The debate over whether certain university degrees are "useless" has taken a new turn, with governance expert Prof. Kwaku Asare arguing that the problem is not the programmes themselves, but the political and economic structures that fail to absorb graduates into meaningful employment.
In a Facebook post that has reignited public discourse on tertiary education, Prof. Asare pushed back against former Education Minister Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum's characterisation of Development Studies at UDS and BA Education (Non-Teaching) at the University of Ghana as "degrees to nowhere."
"Coming from a former Education Minister and a lifelong education reformer, I find those remarks, if accurate, unfortunate," Prof. Asare wrote.
But his critique went beyond defending specific disciplines. He called for a deeper interrogation of the political economy that leaves graduates stranded.
"Graduate employment is determined not only, and not even primarily, by the degree a student earns. It also depends on the strength of the economy," he said.
"A weak economy can produce unemployed engineers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, and computer scientists just as easily as unemployed graduates in the humanities or social sciences."
Prof. Asare challenged universities to be accountable, but argued that accountability is different from condemnation.
Rather than declaring programmes 'useless', he called for the publication of graduate employment outcomes, regular labour-market forecasting, and the embedding of digital, analytical, and entrepreneurial skills across all disciplines.
His most searing critique, however, was reserved for the political class.
"Instead of calling degrees useless, perhaps we should focus on reforming our political parties. They were created to be engines of national development. Too often, they have become machines of patronage, profiteering, polarisation, and propaganda," he wrote.
"Fix the politics, and the economy has a fighting chance. Fix the economy, and far fewer degrees will be called 'degrees to nowhere.'"
