As I’m working in Ghana this month, I thought I’d share a few stories about higher education here in Africa. What’s occupying my thoughts these days is the educational production function (yes, really).

The most amazing thing “western” education systems ever did was to get students to learn on their own, thus reducing both the number of professors required to teach a given number of students and, as a result, the cost of education. Teaching students to “learn how to learn” thus isn’t just cant – it’s the heart of the most important productivity revolution in world education.

But in Africa, libraries are virtually non-existent and until recently electronic resources were inaccessible. Since the tools to “learn to learn” didn’t exist, the only way “learning” can occur is in the classroom. Hence the need for African students to spend 25 to 30 hours in the classroom each week, which is why African professors teach more than ours do.

Now, though, there’s the potential of adopting the western education production function. The libraries are still empty, of course, but the ICT revolution has put an incredible amount of information and resources at the fingertips of anyone with an iPad or laptop, and the relentless fall in computing costs means an increasing number of students are able to access that technology. Which means – in theory at least – they could move to a cheaper, less labour-intensive and generally more “western” university system any time now. That would be a major development, as it makes it possible to expand the higher education system at much lower cost. In a continent with a burgeoning youth population and soaring demand for education, such a game-changer is desperately needed.

The problem is that the new regime reduces the need for professors in the short term (in the longer-term, the effect is probably neutral as demand for education rises). Predictably, therefore, there aren’t a lot of institutions stepping forward to use these new technologies to change the way they deliver education. The mostly church-run private university sector won’t take up the opportunity because, being prestige-seekers like everyone else, they are mainly concerned with trying to ape whatever the most venerable university in the region is doing. And African governments won’t push the idea because reducing employment – even temporarily – causes unrest, and the Arab Spring has made most governments very risk-averse.

The likely best option to catalyze this education revolution is a foreign provider, unencumbered by existing contracts and bringing the prestige of being “western” to come in and establish this model, and hope it spreads by example. There is enormous opportunity to do good here – but will anyone step forward to make it happen?