Kwesi Yankah

Kwesi Yankah combines accomplishments of three kinds: he has written important linguistic and social analyses of African folklore; he is a public intellectual and essayist with a large following in Ghana; and he has been a significant educational administrator. His works on royal oratory in Ghana, on proverb praxis, and the significance of literacy are widely read and appreciated. He was an important newspaper columnist over many years. He is currently Ghana's minister of higher education. This appointment is only one indicator of his contributions to education in the country, first as pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana (the country's premier university), and then as Vice Chancellor at Central University, which he transformed from an undergraduate college into a significant university.