Ashesi offers college alternative
Small university brings liberal arts education to West African students
Amidst a sea of traditional Ghanaian universities, polytechnics and colleges, Ashesi University College stands alone as a shining beacon of liberal arts education in West Africa.
Ghanaian public universities as a whole are very different from the typical American university. A typical Ghanaian class is large with lectures from prepared notes. In most classes the final exam serves as 100 percent of one’s grade in any given course and consists of questions that mostly rely on note memorization.
However, Ashesi’s founder, Dr. Patrick Awuah, sought to create an alternative form of education for Ghanaian students. After attending Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, he decided he wanted to return to his home country and form a university that closely resembled his alma mater. He worked diligently, and in March 2002 his hard work paid off when the school opened its doors with only 30 students.
With a small campus composed of only three buildings and approximately 400 students, Ashesi most certainly is a small university where everyone knows one another. This sense of community and enthusiasm is helpful, in that it keeps everyone, from the student body to the administrators, connected to one another and kept accountable for their work and thinking in innovative ways.
