Kofi Annan educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Early years and education
Kofi Annan was born in Kumasi in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) on 8 April 1938. His twin sister Efua Atta, who died in 1991, shared the middle name Atta, which in the Akan language means "twin". Annan and his sister were born into one of the country's Fante aristocratic families; both of their grandfathers and their uncle were Fante paramount chiefs, and their brother Kobina would go on to become Ghana's ambassador to Morocco.In the Akan names tradition, some children are named according to the day of the week they were born, sometimes in relation to how many children precede them. Kofi in Akan is the name that corresponds with Friday, the day on which Annan was born. The last name Annan in Fante means fourth-born child. Annan said that his surname rhymes with "cannon" in English.From 1954 to 1957, Annan attended the elite Mfantsipim, an all-boys Methodist boarding school in Cape Coast founded in the 1870s. Annan said that the school taught him that "suffering anywhere, concerns people everywhere". In 1957, the year Annan graduated from Mfantsipim, the Gold Coast gained independence from the UK and began using the name "Ghana".
In 1958, Annan began studying economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology of Ghana. He received a Ford Foundation grant, enabling him to complete his undergraduate studies in economics at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, US, in 1961. Annan then completed a diplôme d'études approfondies DEA degree in International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961 to 1962. After some years of work experience, he studied at the MIT Sloan School of Management (1971–72) in the Sloan Fellows program and earned a master's degree in management.
Annan was fluent in English, French, Akan, and some Kru languages as well as other African languages.
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