Businessman Sir Sam Jonah has warned that universities that continue to rely heavily on government funding risk becoming obsolete, saying institutions that depend on state subventions are effectively “planning” their own collapse.
Delivering the keynote address at the installation of the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Professor Denis Aheto, on Saturday, August 1, Sir Sam said the era of depending on public funds to sustain higher education was over.
“The public purse that built this University can no longer sustain it, and no government — of any party — will change that arithmetic soon,” he said.
“A university that waits for subvention is a university planning its own funeral, with a very fine brochure.”
Speaking on the theme, “We Hold the Pen: The University in the Age of Answers,” Sir Sam argued that universities must reinvent themselves as institutions that create value, generate revenue and produce graduates with practical, market-ready skills.
According to him, universities should no longer see themselves as institutions dependent on state support but as centres capable of financing their own future.
“But notice: the university I have described is not a beggar,” he said.
“A university whose students run real fish farms, real energy installations, real enterprises, is a university with revenue, patents, industry partners at the gate, and grateful alumni. The doer university funds itself.”
Sir Sam cited Professor Aheto’s achievements as evidence that such a model is attainable.
“From one centre, Professor Aheto has mobilised over thirty million United States dollars into this University, funded more than four hundred scholarships, trained over fifty PhDs, and grown a national centre into an Africa Centre of Excellence.”
“Imagine a whole university built on that principle.”
He also pledged his personal support towards the transformation of the university.
“I pledge to lead from the front — and I will be knocking, without shame, on the doors of everyone in this hall. Consider yourselves warned.”
Touching on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), Sir Sam said universities must rethink their purpose at a time when machines can provide information more efficiently than humans.
“For the first time in human history, the cleverest entity in the room may not be a person,” he said.
“If our answer is: ‘to transmit knowledge’ — then we are finished, because a machine now does that better, faster and cheaper than we ever will.”
Instead, he said higher education institutions should focus on producing graduates capable of solving real-world problems.
“There are no useless degrees. There are only degrees that have been separated from usefulness — and it is our job to reunite them.”
He proposed that UCC establish Africa’s first degree-awarding faculty dedicated to vocational education, combining academic excellence with practical training. He also advocated AI-driven student innovation clubs, stronger partnerships with industry, diaspora mentorship programmes and project-based learning.
Charging Professor Aheto to pursue bold reforms, Sir Sam said:
“I did not come to Cape Coast to install a caretaker. Caretakers polish inherited furniture. I came to install a founder.”
He concluded by urging the university to embrace the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence rather than fear them.
“The old model of the university is passing. A new one is waiting to be built. Someone will build it. Let it be built here, by us.”
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