An Associate Clinical Professor in the Higher Education, Student Affairs, International Education Policy (HESI) program at the University of Maryland (UMD), US, Professor Candace Moore has described as challenging the constant migration of Africans from their home countries to the Western world for employment opportunities.
According to her, this has become the norm because of the inadequate jobs in the African countries they come from and Ghana is no exception.
She notes that the presence of these people in their respective countries provided they have employment will not only help them to work to advance themselves but also the respective countries they come from.
“You have a highly educated populace, but very few jobs for people to work in and to be able to advance not only themselves but to be able to advance the nation. And so, people then, unfortunately, look for opportunities outside of staying home. So that is actually a very real challenge,” the Fulbright Scholar stressed.
Meanwhile, it is also known that some Africans especially the youth leave home for educational opportunities abroad.
Professor Moore says although there is nothing wrong with Africans traveling abroad to study, there should be a system that will let them return to their home countries after their studies to use their expertise to impact their respective societies.
“Are there partnerships and opportunities that allow for people to maybe gain access to educational corridors, but those corridors bring them back home? If they want to engage in education that is not, for instance, in Ghana and they want to travel, that’s perfectly fine, but that in their traveling and the work that they’re doing, it will hopefully be able to feed back into the communities that they come from,”
Here, she says both the institution of study and the African students have a role to play in ensuring this.
Professor Candace Moore spoke with the media after delivering a presentation at a public Lecture the Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA), located at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) held on Thursday, June 15, 2023.
Her lecture focused on “Leveraging sustainable partnerships centering African indigenous knowledge in global learning.”
Citing examples of two Ghanaian Doctorial students who despite they are studying abroad, have the opportunity to benefit the local communities they come from.
According to her, these are two phenomenal doctoral students who graduated from the University of Cape Coast and are now doing their doctoral studies at the University of Maryland.
“Everything about their scholarship, about their motivation, is to learn whatever they need, build upon it, and bring it back to the communities for which they’ve come from.” She emphasized.
To Professor Moore that speaks to not only their character but their willingness, determination, and their acknowledgment that there is great wealth in their home country.
“And to continue to rob the nation of that wealth and not bring it back would not be something that they wanted to do.”
Meanwhile, she indicated that apart from being impressed by the students, she is also supportive of any ways that opportunities can be found to leverage partnerships that allow for people, if they’re interested, to gain exposure.
But how do we then make sure that pathway brings them back here in a way that continues to build local communities and doesn’t take them away from the work that can be done here?” Professor Candace Moore questioned.
Her remarks were also in response to the theme for IEPA’s Public Lecture “Sustainable Global Partnerships in African Higher Education.”
The Public lecture was in honour of three Sabbatical and Fulbright Scholars which included Professor Candace Moore who received a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award from the U.S. Department of State to study in Ghana during the 2021-2022 academic year.
The other two scholars were Professor Martins Fabunmi (Vising Professor) and Dr. Jillian Martin (Fulbright Scholar).
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Source: Rosemond Asmah/ATLFMNEWS
