When the June 3, 2015 floods and fire in Accra claimed more than 150 lives, the city’s drainage and urban planning systems were exposed as woefully inadequate. The tragedy has since fueled a debate over whether African engineering education equips graduates to design infrastructure that can withstand climate‑induced stresses.
Professor Fred McBagonluri, President of Academic City University, has warned that “we are not educating our youth to solve our problems!” He points to the narrow focus of many programmes, which prioritize established solutions over the ability to identify unfamiliar problems, understand social contexts, and develop practical, locally relevant solutions.
Current entry requirements for Ghanaian engineering schools are tight and competitive, often favouring students with exceptional Senior High School grades. Yet academic performance at that level does not always predict a student’s capacity to become a competent engineer. Many capable students with lower grades in Elective Mathematics or Physics may be excluded, depriving the continent of talent needed to build flood‑resilient drainage, affordable solar microgrids, and food‑security systems.
McBagonluri and his co‑author are developing a textbook, An Introduction to Engineering: A Project‑Based Approach, that uses real‑world African case studies—from the Accra floods to Cape Town’s water crisis—to teach engineering ethics, design, and project management. The aim is to scaffold learning from guided exploration to independent mastery, ensuring students see how engineering failures and innovations affect their own communities.
While digital skills, artificial intelligence, and data literacy are important, Africa’s future jobs will also demand engineers who can design and build power plants, water treatment facilities, road networks, hospitals, and manufacturing plants—foundations for an economy that adds value to its resources.
As climate change intensifies, the continent’s development cannot be separated from engineering. Reforming curricula to focus on climate‑adapted infrastructure, renewable energy grids, clean water systems, sustainable transport, and food security is now a pressing priority for African universities and policymakers alike.
