Fix the economy, don’t blame degrees – Kwaku Azar to Adutwum

Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has urged former Education Minister Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum to focus on strengthening the economy rather than dismissing university programmes as “degrees to nowhere.”

Kwaku Azar made the remarks in a Facebook post on Sunday in response to comments by Dr. Adutwum, who recently criticised some university programmes, including Development Studies at the University for Development Studies and the Bachelor of Arts in Education (Non-Teaching) at the University of Ghana, describing them as courses that do not equip graduates with skills demanded by the labour market.

While acknowledging Dr. Adutwum’s call for greater accountability in higher education, the legal scholar argued that it was wrong to dismiss entire academic disciplines.

“He is right to challenge universities to be accountable. He is wrong to dismiss entire disciplines,” Kwaku Azar wrote.

According to him, university programmes should not be judged solely by whether their titles lead directly to a particular profession, noting that many disciplines equip students with transferable skills applicable across different sectors.

“The issue is not whether a discipline has value. The issue is whether the curriculum equips graduates with competencies that today’s economy demands,” he stated.

Kwaku Azar maintained that universities should be held accountable for the quality and relevance of their programmes but distinguished accountability from outright condemnation.

“But accountability is different from condemnation,” he said, urging universities to publish graduate employment outcomes, conduct regular labour-market forecasting, tie accreditation to measurable outcomes, and embed digital, analytical, entrepreneurial and practical skills across all disciplines.

He also argued that graduate unemployment cannot be attributed solely to university programmes, insisting that the broader state of the economy plays a decisive role.

“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,” he wrote.

Calling for a broader national conversation, Kwaku Azar stressed that creating jobs requires sustained economic growth and investment rather than blaming academic programmes.

“If we want more graduates to find meaningful work, we must do more than redesign university programmes. We must build an economy that creates jobs, rewards innovation, supports entrepreneurship, attracts investment, and grows fast enough to absorb the talent our universities produce,” he said.

He ended his post by urging political leaders to address governance challenges, writing: “Fix the politics, and the economy has a fighting chance. Fix the economy, and far fewer degrees will be called ‘degrees to nowhere.'”