Pines to Introduce Engineering Education Program to Ghanaian High Schools
e4usa Initiative Aims to Expand Access to STEM Learning Before College
Darryll J. Pines meets with students at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, which will partner with Education 4 Us All to offer an engineering curriculum. Pines traveled to West Africa during UMD's Spring Break to introduce the program he conceived to democratize STEM education and teach engineering principles to high schoolers.
Photos courtesy of Darryll J. Pines
University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines will implement his signature engineering education program in Ghana under an agreement signed last week with the West African country’s Ministry of Education and other partners.
Engineering 4 Us All (e4usa), which was funded by a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation with Pines as principal investigator, plans to begin training teachers in Ghana beginning in April at three sites around the nation. The program aims to democratize access to STEM education by providing a standardized education curriculum for pre-college students to learn and demonstrate engineering principles, skills and practices. Participants have the opportunity to earn college credit at participating institutions.
To date, e4usa involves 82 participating high schools with approximately 6,000 students. This partnership with Ghana will be the first outside the United States.
“It was enriching and productive, working to increase access to engineering curriculum to students we need in the profession,” Pines said.
The international investment firm Clarendon Global Partners, headquartered in London with a Pan-African focus, was the third party to the memorandum of understanding signed last Tuesday, along with UMD and the Ghanaian government.
He and Marlon Brown, Clarendon’s CEO, also visited the University of Cape Coast in Ghana and met with Ademola Ogunbanjo, CEO of Oando Clean Energy and his team in Lagos, Nigeria. They focused on the critical training and development needed to support sustainable solar development and infrastructure investment.
Pines met with Akosua Dickson, vice chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, to discuss possible education and research opportunities for the UMD community, as well as collaborations for e4usa training.
Pines toured the new STEAM Centre at Accra High Senior High School, where the students were working on robotics.
Pines meets with Osei Tutu II, monarch of the Asante Empire, who sits amid his court at Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti Region of southern Ghana. “I am greeting the King, as is tradition from 400 years ago in Ghana. I gave him a crystal turtle and a commemorative inauguration muffler as gifts,” Pines tweeted.
Pines signs a memorandum of understanding to deliver a e4usa engineering curriculum pilot in Ghana in partnership with Clarendon Global Partners CEO Marlon Brown and Minister of Education Yaw Osei Adutwum.
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