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Good practice Imported

University of Ghana Makes Google AI Essentials and AI Professional Certification Compulsory for First-Year Students

Ghana · Accra · See the Ghana profile · See the Accra profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 82% 33/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Under Ghana's national One Million Coders Programme, the University of Ghana is embedding four Google career certificates — Prompting Essentials, AI Essentials, AI Professional and Digital Literacy — into a mandatory new Level 100 course, backed by 2,500 donated laptops.

2,500 (2,000 + earlier 500)
Laptops donated to support rollout (2026)
100,000
Free Google Career Certificate scholarships (national programme) (2026)
10 hours
AI Essentials course length
4 (Prompting Essentials, AI Essentials, AI Professional, Digital Literacy)
Compulsory certifications required per student
130 centres across all 16 regions
One Million Coders Programme reach (national)
University of Ghana Makes Google AI Essentials and AI Professional Certification Compulsory for First-Year Students

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
University of Ghana & Ghana's Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations (One Million Coders Programme), with Google
Period
2026 (launching)
Keywords
AI literacy, digital skills, higher education, public-private partnership

Context

Ghana's One Million Coders Programme (OMCP), led by the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations and championed by President John Dramani Mahama, aims to train one million Ghanaians in digital skills, with Google opening 100,000 free Career Certificate scholarships across seven tracks delivered through the government's onemillioncoders.gov.gh platform.

Objectives

The initiative aims to make AI and digital literacy compulsory for every incoming University of Ghana student by folding four Google certifications — Prompting Essentials, AI Essentials, AI Professional and Digital Literacy — into a new mandatory Level 100 course, "Digital Literacy and Applied AI".

Activities

In July 2026, University of Ghana Vice-Chancellor Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo announced the mandatory course, and Minister Samuel Nartey George presented 2,000 laptops to support the rollout, in addition to 500 donated earlier, while the university's Computer Science department began incorporating the certifications into existing courses.

Results

As of the announcement, the compulsory course had not yet started, so no completion, pass-rate or learning-outcome data exists yet; other Ghanaian public universities have reportedly expressed interest in replicating the model.

Conclusions

The evidence documents a funded, named, dated policy commitment and infrastructure rollout — laptops, platform, named officials — rather than a proven learning-impact result, so outcomes should be tracked once the course begins.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Government ministry (Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations) coordinating the national programme and infrastructure, University of Ghana Computer Science department incorporating certifications into existing courses, Google providing certification content and scholarships

Conditions for success

  • Device access for all students (2,500 laptops donated to support the rollout)
  • An institutional mandate embedding certifications into a compulsory, credit-bearing course rather than an optional add-on
  • A national platform (onemillioncoders.gov.gh) delivering certification content at scale

Common failure modes

  • No completion, pass-rate or learning-outcome data exists yet since the course had not started at the time of reporting
  • Success depends on continued laptop/device provisioning matching compulsory enrolment

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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