Mr Patrick Awuah, Founder and President of Ashesi University, says Africa’s economic difficulty and corrupt political system can be overcome if it changes its way of education.
He said the transformational leadership, economic development and better standard of living Africans had yearned for could only be achieved if “we began teaching and changing the mindset of children and youth on values of selflessness, integrity, responsibility and success.”
He made the call when he delivered an address at the launch of the media and legacy projects of the HuB Group’s 20-year anniversary celebration of inspiring and empowering established and emerging leaders across the globe.
On the theme: “Amplify: Inspired people influencing Places,” the 20th anniversary aimed to highlight the profound impact its network of leaders had on various communities around the world.
“Africa needs a different kind of leader and kind of society for its development. We need to transform the way we educate our children and radically change the way we educate people in our universities,” Mr Awuah said.
Citing excerpts from Prof Kwame Gyekye’s book ‘The Unexamined Life’ that talked about development as a central concern of most Africans and how Africans had been let down by their leaders through corruption and mismanagement, he said “we needed people with different mindset who tackled problems in different ways.”
He said to make a unique and excellent leader, one needed to prepare for difficult times where they were constantly learning, set targets and meet them consistently.
He said the banking crises could have been approached differently by allowing some kind of merger where the viable banks merged with the weaker ones but noted that the crises were characterised by low trust, low integrity, and high levels of fears by all parties involved.
He urged the HuD Group to mentor and train people with a mindset that would bring prosperity to Ghana and all the 24 countries the Group operates in.
Dr Yaw Perbi, Medical Practitioner and One of the Founders of HuD Group, said leadership was the bedrock of growth in all aspects of life and must not be left in the hands of the political class.
“Leadership is too important to be left in the hands of politicians. Leadership is not about political position, age, and genders but the skill of seeing a problem, mobilizing resources and people, deduce ideas, strategies to solve them,” he said.
The HuD Group over the past two decades has played a pivotal role in empowering young people to discover their purpose, unlock their potential and positively impact society through its transformative programmes, products, people, and places.
The Group would also unveil three significant legacy projects being the Established leaders mentoring emerging leaders, Outreach 20, 000 which aims at spreading the message of holistic leadership to 20, 000 rural youth and #Read2Read Project, a partnership with Perbi Cubs’ Kanéval to sponsor a public and digitize The Mine library.
Source: GNA