Growing up in Ghana, Kofi Kifayah, not his real name, envisaged becoming a world-class software engineer. He studied computer science at the Kumasi Technical University and graduated in 2018.
Kifays’s dream stemmed from his childhood interest in computer video games and the enticing financial prospects touted by tech companies in the early 2010s.
“My fascination with the computer and the rhetoric about software engineering being a promising career drew me to programming,” Kifayah shared about his motivation to study computer science.
Eventually, he landed an entry-level position at a tech firm in Ghana’s capital, Accra, earning GHS 4,000.00 ($700.00) monthly in 2020. However, by the end of that year, the company had laid off most of its staff, including Kifayah, as businesses struggled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As demand for services plummeted, employers froze entry-level hiring. This made it difficult for the software engineer to secure junior roles at tech and quasi-tech firms. Kifayah said he had applied to hundreds of tech jobs in Ghana and remote roles overseas, but all ended in disappointment.
He said all the firms demanded proficiency in Artificial Intelligence (AI) coding tools. “At some point, firms were not even responding to my follow-up emails when they realized I didn’t have experience with AI coding assistants. It was depressing,” the tech enthusiast lamented.
After three years of not getting employment in the tech industry and feeling pressured by family expectations, Kifayah turned his back on the industry. He set up a mobile money vending business in 2024 – providing money transfer and withdrawal services in Ghana’s second largest city, Kumasi.
“This was not where I envisioned being, but I am happy I have a business,” Kifayah said.
Many young people saw technology as an escape from the poverty in a country blessed with abundant natural resources, at the same time, plagued with corruption. More than 24% of the national population still lives below the poverty line, according to OXFAM international, and there is no doubt corruption is playing a significant role in perpetuating the suffering of many.
A wave of campaigns in the early 2010s urged students to learn programming, arguing that such skills would enhance their employability and grow the economy. The promises of financial incentives and all manner of perks by tech executives, sparked a surge in computer science education in Ghana.
“The increased enrolment in tech education at the time followed the market trend. Salaries were high and employers were searching for talent – that made tech education appealing,” Fareed Mohammed, an Accra-based senior software engineer said.
However, the emergence of AI programming tools, which generate computer code lines faster, is dimming prospects of an industry that executives spent years promoting as the golden solution to youth unemployment. It is shattering the dreams of many computer science graduates, pushing them to explore other careers.
While specific unemployment data for computer science graduates in Ghana is unavailable, the general statistics are staggering. About 10 percent of graduates get jobs within one year of graduation, and many more taking up to 10 years to secure stable employment, according to the University of Ghana’s Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research.
Many computer science graduates – from leading institutions including the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, and University for Development Studies – said only a few tech companies and start-ups responded to their job applications. Many who passed the challenging job assessment processes said they were not offered the roles.
Among them is Emmanuel Nartey, not his real name, who enrolled in the Computer Science programme at the University for Development in 2018 following assurances of job and income security. He is yet to land his first software role since graduating in 2022. “It has been the most difficult period of my life,” Nartey said.
The growing use of AI coding assistants is wiping out entry-level roles, prompting tech companies to cut back on hiring junior software engineers. In quasi-firms, AI is rapidly taking over jobs once reserved for fresh graduates and interns.
Fareed said tech firms are now interested in hiring experienced AI engineers to lead the AI revolution in their teams as they race to dominate the space and not graduates requiring training.
“The reality is that digital product evolution is AI-tailored now, and fresh graduates lack the experienced in AI to make them competitive ,” the senior software engineer said.
He acknowledged that AI-generated codes are not error-free, but Fareed said neither are codes written by fresh graduates. He added that “fixing AI’s takes minutes, while most new grads would take days for the same task.”
Yakubu Lantam Abdul-Jabbar, Co-Founder of software company ColdSiS Ghana, attributed the struggle by computer science graduates to secure jobs to a “huge skills gap.” He said many Ghanaian universities are not equipping students with AI coding skills, despite being in high demand in the job market.
“The universities need to align their teaching with industry to improve student employability,” the ColdSiS co-founder said. He advised against teaching students outdated programming techniques.”
While many computer science graduates in Ghana feel disadvantaged by the emergence of AI coding tools, others praised it for helping them to secure high-paying jobs.
A recent University of Ghana graduate, who preferred not to be mentioned, said enrolling in paid online courses and internships to learn coding with AI made it easier for him to secure his current job. “I invested in myself to get skills that were not taught in our labs, and it paid off,” he shared.
The International Finance Corporation projects Ghana could create nine million digital jobs by 2030, generating about $4 billion in revenue. However, it warns that employers may have to import talent if the country fails to invest in digital skills, which will lead to revenue loss.
The government has since unveiled digital initiatives, including the ‘One Million Coders’ programme, aimed at equipping young people with “digital skills of the future.”
While experts commend the government for the initiative, they urged the government to provide a favourable regulatory framework and incentivise tech start-ups, arguing that would help in creating jobs.
As AI transforms programming, Fareed urges computer science graduates to embrace its tools instead of avoiding them. “Early investment in learning AI tool will increase the competitiveness of graduates in the job market,” he advised, while warning that relying solely on traditional programming skills would not be sufficient to keep Ghanaian graduates in the tech field.
