Business leader and Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Sam Jonah, has critiqued Africa’s education system, warning that the continent is producing graduates with certificates but without the practical skills needed to transform economies.

Speaking at the installation of Professor Denis Worlanyo Aheto as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast on Saturday, August 1, Jonah said universities must urgently redefine what higher education means in an era where artificial intelligence can outperform humans in many knowledge-based tasks.

“I say this with love, but I must say it: too many of our graduates leave university having memorised much and built little,” he said.

Using an analogy from education consultant Anis Haffar, Jonah noted that a student could earn top grades in music theory yet be unable to play a simple tune on the flute.

“The world our graduates are entering will not ask them what they know. It will ask them what they can do.”

He argued that the problem stretches across Africa, producing graduates who understand concepts but lack practical competence.

“Multiply that flute by a million, and you have the tragedy of African education: graduates who can describe agriculture but cannot grow a tomato; who can define entrepreneurship but have never sold anything.”

He added: “Knowledge of a thing is not the ability to do the thing. And a nation of people who know, but cannot do, will remain a poor nation — beautifully certificated, and poor.”

Jonah said the rise of artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed the purpose of universities because answers and information are now readily available.

“For the first time in human history, the cleverest entity in the room may not be a person. The scarcity of answers is over.”

He said universities would become irrelevant if they continued to define themselves only as institutions that transmit knowledge.

“If our answer is: ‘to transmit knowledge’ — then we are finished, because a machine now does that better, faster and cheaper than we ever will.”

Instead, he urged universities to focus on developing qualities machines cannot replicate.

“But if our answer is: ‘to form human beings who can do what no machine can do’ — then, ladies and gentlemen, the university is about to enter its greatest century.”

Jonah dismissed the debate over “useless degrees,” insisting the issue lies elsewhere.

“There are no useless degrees. There are only degrees that have been separated from usefulness — and it is our job to reunite them.”

He proposed that the University of Cape Coast become the first university in Africa to establish a degree-awarding faculty dedicated to vocational education, where students graduate only after demonstrating real-world competence.

He also called for project-based learning, stronger industry partnerships and the integration of artificial intelligence across every discipline.

“The certificate and the competence, reunited at last,” he said.

Jonah ended with a challenge to universities across the continent, warning that Africa’s future depends on producing graduates who create value rather than simply collect qualifications.

“The universities that answer this call will produce the founders, the builders, and the leaders of the coming decades. The universities that do not will produce certificates.”