Prof Kwaku Asare (Kwaku Azar), a Legal scholar and governance expert, has fired back at former Education Minister Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum over remarks describing some university programmes as “useless” and “degrees to nowhere”.
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has described some university courses in Ghana as useless, as they do not adequately prepare students for the job market.
Dr Adutwum raised concerns about the relevance of certain university programmes in Ghana.
The former Education Minister criticised the BA in Education (Non-Teaching) programme at the University of Ghana, arguing that graduates often struggle to find employment after completing national service.
Speaking recently on the Konnected Minds podcast, Dr Adutwum stated, “There are some courses that are being offered. When I was the minister, I challenged universities about that. And I spoke about how we don’t need anybody to offer courses called Development Studies, and it was being offered at UDS”.
“The Vice-Chancellor called me the day after and said, ‘Minister, because of the comment that you made, a student has just come to check out of Development Studies. And I said, ‘ It’s good for him. You know, and I know that course is not taking the student anywhere.
He further added, “You go to the University of Ghana, and they have a course in education that they call BA in Education Non-Teaching. They come and do their national service, and after national service, they are frustrated because nobody is hiring them”.
Dr Adutwum further described such programmes as leading to what he called a “university degree to nowhere”.
He added that the trend raises broader concerns about graduate unemployment in the country.
Reacting to Dr Adutwum’s comments, Prof Kwaku Asare told the former Education Minister It is wrong to dismiss entire academic disciplines as “useless”.
According to Prof Asare, universities must be held accountable for graduate outcomes; it is wrong to dismiss entire academic disciplines as “useless”.
He argued that university education should not be judged solely by whether a programme leads directly to a specific job.
Prof Asare stated that university programmes are designed to build transferable competencies such as critical thinking, research, communication, policy analysis, project management and problem-solving.
In a Facebook post, Prof Asare wrote, “My good friend, former Education Minister Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has allegedly described Development Studies at the University for Development Studies and the BA in Education (Non-Teaching) at the University of Ghana as “useless” and “degrees to nowhere” that do not equip graduates with skills demanded by the labour market.
Coming from a former Education Minister and a lifelong education reformer, I find those remarks, if accurate, unfortunate.
He is right to challenge universities to be accountable. He is wrong to dismiss entire disciplines.
No university programme should be judged simply by whether its title leads directly to a particular job.
Many programmes develop transferable competencies, including critical thinking, research, communication, policy analysis, project management, and problem-solving, that are valuable across many sectors.
Development Studies graduates, for example, serve in government, NGOs, and international organisations,
development finance, consulting, and research.
Likewise, graduates of BA in Education (Non-Teaching) contribute in educational policy, curriculum development, educational administration, assessment, educational technology, corporate training, human resource development, NGOs, educational consulting, and public service. Not every education graduate is destined for the classroom, nor should they be.
The issue is not whether a discipline has value. The issue is whether the curriculum equips graduates with competencies that today’s economy demands.
The better questions are:
• What measurable competencies do graduates acquire?
• Are those competencies valued by employers or useful for entrepreneurship?
• Does the programme prepare students for further specialization?
• Are curricula regularly reviewed against labour-market needs?
Universities should indeed be held accountable. They should not continue enrolling large numbers of students into programmes with persistently poor outcomes without redesigning those programmes or being transparent about graduate employment.
But accountability is different from condemnation.
Rather than declaring programmes “useless,” we should:
• Publish graduate employment outcomes for every programme.
• Conduct regular labour-market forecasting.
• Tie accreditation to measurable outcomes.
• Embed digital, analytical, entrepreneurial, and practical skills across all disciplines.
• Continuously modernize curricula while preserving academically valuable fields.
There is one final point.
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.
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.
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.
The question, therefore, is not whether a programme is “useful.”
The question is whether we are building both an education system and an economy worthy of our graduates.
Which brings me to the real challenge.
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.
Fix the politics, and the economy has a fighting chance.
Fix the economy, and far fewer degrees will be called “degrees to nowhere.”
PS: Yɛde post no bɛto hɔ. Yɛnyɛ comprehension consultants.
Da Yie!”
See the post below:
🚨 Former Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has identified some useless courses being taught in Ghanaian universities.👀 pic.twitter.com/vhIeegmOsX
— 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐧 (@Voice_of_Legon) July 5, 2026
