Former Minister of Education and Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has critiqued the Ghanaian education system, emphasising the urgent need to prioritise critical thinking over rote learning.

In an interview on Cruise Control with Mercury Quaye on Hitz FM on Wednesday, March 25, Dr. Adutwum argued that a system heavily reliant on memorisation inadvertently stifles creativity and innovation.

“If your education system is not about critical thinking, you are not developing innovators,” he stated.

The former minister elaborated that traditional schooling methods, which reward memorisation and conformity, often suppress the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills of students.

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“Those who go to school because they wrote examinations and memorised content have been tamed not to think critically,” he said.

According to Dr. Adutwum, this limitation has profound implications for national development. He suggested that many of the country’s most innovative minds emerge outside the formal education system.

“You are going to realise that those who didn’t go to school are the ones who become the innovators of the country,” he explained.

Highlighting the versatility of innovation, Dr. Adutwum noted that individuals in music, entrepreneurship, and other sectors often display the highest levels of creativity, precisely because they have not been constrained by the rigidities of conventional education.

“Whether in music or other facets of life, the most creative are those who did not pursue education to the master’s and PhD levels, and sometimes not even to a bachelor’s degree, but they were not tamed by the system,” he added.