The majority of the programs offered at Ashesi University are STEM programs. They include programs such as Engineering and Computer Science, which are disciplines where women are ordinarily underrepresented. However, per its mission, Ashesi actively seeks to enrollol women, and other minorities, who remain highly excluded from its programs. Ashesi strives to maintain an average of 50% girls in its STEM programs each year, surpassing the global average of 30-35%.
To do this, Ashesi’s admissions team travels all over Ghana and other African countrie, focusing on students at girls’ high schools to recruit for our STEM programs in Business Administration, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, and Engineering. The admissions team effectively engages with the high school heads and counselors of girls’ and co-educational high schools to recruit a higher-than-average number of female students into its STEM programs. We also intentionally visit schools that span urban, peri-urban, and rural areas, speaking at high school programs to encourage brilliant girls to apply for STEM-related programs. We also ask women’s associations, such as Women in Engineering (WINE) in Ghana and Campaign for Female Education CAMFED, to serve as our recruiting advocates. Some of the several girls’ high schools we recruit students from include Alliance Girl’s High School and Precious Blood Girls’ High School (Kenya); Arundel (Zimbabwe); and Aburi Girls Senior High, St. Mary’s Senior High, St. Roses Senior High and Wesley Girls High School (Ghana).
Ashesi also targets over 30 African countries each year to enable it to reach the high number it seeks to recruit. The countries include but are not limited to low and lower-middle-income countries such as Ghana, Rwanda, Nigeria, Côte D’Ivoire, Liberia, Cameroon, Lesotho, and Egypt. Consequently, as there is a strong likelihood of the bright and talented female students falling in the bottom two financial deciles, Ashesi has established a Financial Aid scheme to provide the students the means to attend Ashesi. Additionally, Ashesi has partnered with the MasterCard Foundation and other philanthropic partners to recruit and offer scholarships to students from diverse low-income communities across Africa. In 2022, 43% of the students at Ashesi, on average, were on full or partial scholarships.
Ashesi ensures a robust application process by seeking out bright female students and supporting the applicants throughout the application process. Female students are more likely to be unfamiliar with the process and thus need additional guidance completing the application. An integral part of our process has been a feedback system where we obtain students’ feedback on our application process to help us improve. We try as much as possible to ensure the process is friendly and informative to every applicant to increase the applicants’ chances of completing and submitting the application forms.
We also receive parents and schools at our beautiful campus to experience our culture firsthand. Girls from the African Science Academy are frequent visitors to our campus each year as part of their college tour initiative.
As an additional pipeline for young Africans interested in technology to enroll at Ashesi, Ashesi holds an annual summer workshop, the Ashesi Innovation Experience (AIX) for high school students. This highly coveted program admits equal numbers of high school boys and girls from diverse backgrounds of religion, socio-economics, locale, and ability. The two-week enrichment program provides high school students insights into the transition to college, while serving as a significant talent recruiting conduit for Ashesi. Both genders excel in lively technology and entrepreneurship activities under the mentorship of Ashesi faculty, staff, alumni, and students. The Engineering and Robotics modules of AIX often intrigue female participants, many of whom return to study in Ashesi’s STEM programs.
