Re-fashioning African Studies in an Information Technology Driven World for Africa's Transformation

Abstract

The African Studies programme, launched in the University of Ghana by Ghana's first president, was for “students to know and understand their roots, inherited past traditions, norms and lore (and to) re-define the African personality” and the “inculcation of time honoured African values of truthfulness, humanness, rectitude and honour …and ultimately ensure a more just and orderly African society” Sackey (2014:225). These and other principles constitute some of the cardinal goals of the programme in both public and private universities in Ghana. Considering tertiary education as both a public and private enterprise, this paper seeks to enrich the discourse on African Studies by taking a retrospection of the subject and investigated university students' perceptions of the discipline among public and privately funded spheres. Adopting a qualitative approach, the paper interviewed students on the relevance of the discipline in a contemporary information technology driven world. The outcome of such interrogation was that African Studies is even more relevant in the era of globalization than it might have been in immediate post independent Africa. It concludes by unraveling how the discipline can be re-fashioned for Africa's transformation.