The Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Sir Sam Jonah, has criticised Ghana’s education system for not doing enough to teach students about the ideas and intellectual contributions of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah.
According to Sir Jonah, many Ghanaian students leave school knowing Nkrumah mainly through historical dates, monuments and his political achievements, but without a deeper understanding of his writings and philosophy.
He made the comments on Thursday, September 17, 2026, when he delivered the opening address at the 15th Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures at UCC.
Sir Jonah said important works by Nkrumah, including Consciencism, Africa Must Unite and Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, are not given enough attention in Ghanaian schools and universities.
“The ideas Nkrumah stood for are hardly taught in Ghanaian schools,” Sir Jonah said.
He compared Ghana’s situation with universities in the United States, where Nkrumah continues to be studied in African and African American Studies programmes.
“Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in the departments of African American Studies at American universities, Nkrumah is on the syllabus. He is read, assigned, examined and argued over,” he said.
Sir Jonah pointed out what he described as an irony: Nkrumah was educated at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, yet his ideas may be studied more consistently by students in American classrooms than by students in Ghana.
“The American student meets Nkrumah as a thinker. Too many Ghanaian students meet him only as a statue.”
He said this should encourage universities and policymakers to rethink how Nkrumah’s ideas are taught and included in Ghana’s education system.
Sir Jonah specifically called on the leadership of UCC to consider adding Nkrumah’s intellectual works to the university’s curriculum, especially since the institution hosts memorial lectures in his honour.
“I would gently commend a thought to the Vice-Chancellor and to Convocation: that a university which carries Nkrumah’s name on its lecture series might also carry his ideas in its curriculum.”
He added: “I do not presume to write the syllabus. I merely observe that we already have the books.”
The Chancellor said the annual lectures on Nkrumah should go beyond simply remembering the former president.
He believes they should also create space for students and the public to critically examine the ideas that shaped Nkrumah’s vision for Ghana and Africa.
