In a bid to reshape engineering education, the College of Engineering, KNUST, hosted a two-day workshop on Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. The workshop, held on July 10th and 11th at the KEEP Conference Room, brought together selected representatives from every department to develop concrete strategies for embedding these themes into the engineering education.
The workshop was facilitated by Prof. Joseph P. Eshun, Associate Professor of Business Management, East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, USA, whose sessions focused on equipping faculty members with tools to inspire innovation and entrepreneurial thinking in both faculty and students. The workshop included representatives from Electrical, Mechanical, Agricultural, Civil, Computer, Chemical, Geomatics, Materials, Telecommunications Engineering, and the Innovation Centre.
This initiative is part of a broader effort by the College to make engineering education more relevant to real-world challenges. “We must be intentional about building a mindset that embraces change,” Prof. Eshun said, emphasising that engineering education must evolve beyond technical instruction to include creative problem-solving, risk-taking, and value creation.
In a feedback session, Prof. Kwabena Britwum Nyarko, Provost of the College of Engineering, stressed the importance of mindset changes. Participants noted that academic scores should prioritise problem-solving and real-world applications over rote memorisation. Student orientation should explicitly introduce innovation and entrepreneurship as core aspects of engineering education. Faculty and students need exposure to local success stories. One proposal was interviewing students and alumni entrepreneurs and using their stories as motivational tools during orientation and lectures.
The Provost supported these suggestions and urged departments to identify students already running startups, share their stories, and develop systems that allow students to build ventures during their time in school. “Innovation must not be treated as an add-on but as something instilled in us”, he noted. He further challenged faculty members to model entrepreneurial behaviour by building their ventures and showing students what’s possible beyond academia.
There were also calls to leverage existing entrepreneurship labs and programs, strengthen student club systems focused on innovation and support student-built projects already in development at the College’s Innovation Centre.
Prof. Kwadwo Mensah Darkwa emphasised the need for permanent structural change. He proposed that creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship become a mandatory core course, not an elective or workshop series. Another major curriculum proposal was to restructure the “Engineering in Society” course into three levels: Introductory for first-year students, Intermediate for third-year students, and Advanced for final-year and graduate students. Prof. Eshun was asked to build a full e-learning component for the course, including videos, lecture slides, case studies, and hands-on project assignments, all accessible on the university’s digital platforms.
Each departmental representative was tasked to submit a one-page write-up on how creativity and innovation can be integrated into their department’s academic model. These documents will be compiled and presented to the Provost for review and implementation planning.
The workshop marks the first step in what faculty members hope will be a long-term transformation in how engineers are trained to solve problems, create value, launch ventures, and drive systemic change.
