I went on YouTube. I looked for “Amazing technological wonders” of China, Korea and the United States. What met my eyes didn’t amaze me; they made me giddy. These nations are so technologically superior, they’re already dwelling in 2050.
In 1953, South Korea was shattered by the three-year Korean War. Technologically and economically, that nation is as outdated as Ghana. A poor nation even earlier than the struggle, South Korea immediately ranks mid-tier in key rising applied sciences like biotech, quantum, and area.
China, as at 1957 (the yr of Ghana’s start), was so poor that they had been, for survival, sporting the identical design and high quality of garments. The nation’s GDP was 59.7. Then China started chasing science and know-how. In 2023, the GDP was 17,794.8.
In 1998, when President Bill Clinton visited Ghana, NCS got here with him. After wanting round with their cameras, NCS’s correspondents concluded that “at this rate of development, it will take the Third World 250 years to catch up with the West”.
In know-how, a Japanese AI wizard has developed an app that interprets language immediately. In dialog, press the microphone button and let the opposite individual communicate. Release the button and listen to the interpretation in your language – immediately. This is where science is taking humankind. Permit me to qualify it: humankind minus Africa.
I couldn’t have written this final sentence if Kwame Nkrumah had been alive. He knew where the world was shifting to and, due to this fact, arrange the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. (In distinction, solely seven years in the past, in 2018, Ghana authorities was promoting a part of the CSIR land to Chinese builders to construct a lodge!!! It took the union to withstand and thwart the transfer).
On March 9, 2017, I wrote within the ‘Daily Graphic’ about “The Woman Who Saw Tomorrow”. That girl is Professor Rose Emma Mamaa Entsua-Mensah, then Deputy Director-General of CSIR and Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (one other Kwame Nkrumah initiative)
This week, as my ideas centred on science-induced improvement – the China, South Korea means – I learn a paper delivered by her on May 26, 2021, at a lecture to commemorate GIMPA @ 60. Her matter was ‘Post Pandemic Times – Strategies to Sustain and Strengthen Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Tertiary Education in Ghana’
Last Wednesday, I referred to as her up, sought and obtained her permission to cite copiously from her paper. Here are excerpts that aptly sum up what’s on my thoughts.
Still seeing tomorrow, she was at pains to remind her compatriots that “a country’s economic development and stability are dependent on its ability to invent and develop new products.”
Hear her: “From medical scientists, who develop therapies for illnesses, to civil engineers, who design and construct a nation’s infrastructure, each side of human life relies on the discoveries and developments of scientists and engineers. Consequently, it’s vital for nations in search of to scale back their poverty ranges to undertake new scientific analysis and know-how.
“At the implementation degree (in Ghana), there are two main public analysis our bodies, specifically the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research with 13 specialised Research Institutes and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) with six Atomic and Nuclear Research Institutes working. Other STI-related establishments embody Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute underneath GAEC, Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Centre for Plant Medicine Research (CPMR), GRATIS Foundation, Ghana Standards Authority, and Food and Drugs Board.
For human useful resource improvement, Ghana has 13 public universities, 10 technical universities, seven chartered personal universities, 44 Colleges of Education and eight Technical Institutes unfold throughout the 16 areas of Ghana.”
Unfortunately – and that’s where Prof Mamaa Entsua-Mensah begins tearing up – “Ghana’s current attitude to science is in sharp contrast to the efforts and resultant high benefits that countries such as Malaysia and South Korea, which were in similar economic conditions as Ghana in the early 60s, have attained.”
It is on document that “there are challenges of inadequate science infrastructure and academic staff at our tertiary institutions. Many of the tertiary institutions lack modern science laboratories, basic science tools and equipment, which are crucial for scientific and technological training.”
What broke my coronary heart within the Professor’s presentation was the truth that “the majority of the newly converted technical universities lack important laboratories for training high-level skills of practical work in industry.”
She proposes to Ghana that “Universities ought to hyperlink up with universities within the West or Asia (South Korea, Japan and Malaysia) to coach younger lecturers in new improvements in STEM. These could possibly be achieved as sandwich programmes.
But maybe there’s hope. In July this yr, a ceremony was held someplace within the Central Region at which the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP), underneath the Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, formally handed over the administration of 31 totally outfitted Technology Solution Centres (TSCs) to the GRATIS Foundation.
Remember good outdated GRATIS? It’s been almost 30 years. Kudos to Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare for chasing that dream.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform don’t essentially symbolize the views or coverage of Multimedia Group Limited.
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