Prof deGraft-Yankson, Patrique

Patrique deGraft‐Yankson is a professionally trained teacher with a background in Arts Education. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Graphic Design, University of Education, Winneba (UEW). Since 1986, he has been active in a pedagogical enterprise which fundamentally involves the identification and nurturance of students’ creative sensibilities at various levels of education in Ghana. His interests in information and communication technology (ICT) and its integration in education at its emerging stages in Ghana laid a foundation for his postgraduate studies which mainly focused on the influence of ICTs in the teaching and learning of Art and Design in Ghana. Insights, lessons and experiences from his early research works eventually developed into a research interest which basically questions the role of Art and Design in all their disciplinary manifestations and seeks to contrast the argument for the preference of colonial design tenets in contemporary design education in Ghana. The underlining reasoning for his current interest in traditional symbolism and iconography, is therefore backed by a profound deconstructive position which aims at redefining design for visual cultural relevance in the midst of rapid technological advancements. This interest interrogates how design works within the local context, and what it will take to redesign the indigenous material world with the wellbeing of the society in mind. He has played marked initiating roles towards the transformation of Graphic Design Education in his mother institution.

He has been highly instrumental in the quest for appropriate ICT integration procedures into the teaching and learning of Art and Design in the University of Education, Winneba, and continues to exhibit a lot of interests in the pedagogical implications of ICTs in Visual Arts and Design Education in Ghana.