Prof Andam calls for more commitment to promote science

Elmina, May 17, GNA - Prof Kwesi Andam, the Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, has said on Tuesday that the introduction of science into the nation's culture would only make an impact if the teaching of the subject in first and second cycle institutions was "properly packaged and monitored". He said there was the need to "strengthen junior and senior secondary schools in science and technology" by providing adequately equipped laboratories and workshops. Prof Andam, was delivering a paper on "Culture and the Sciences" at the national conference on culture and education" which opened at Elmina on Monday.

The week-long conference aims at creating an awareness of the importance of culture in formal education and is organised by the National Commission on Culture and the Ministry of Education with support from the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.


Traditional rulers, and officials from the country's public and private universities, as well as from the ministries of Education, Tourism and the Ghana Education Service are attending. Prof Andam stressed the need for the government to pledge to sufficiently invest in science, for basic and applied sciences to be promoted at higher levels of education and for the immediate introduction of the "long-awaited" tax relief to industries that invest in science and research.

Speaking on the "study of culture in the formal education system", Mr Freeman Aguri, national coordinator of the cultural education unit of the GES, said cultural education was one of the major concerns of the sector ministry and the GES.


He said it has been recognized worldwide that any people who have succeeded in transmitting their culture to the younger generation have succeeded in building a strong and prosperous nation. Mr Aguri said the nation needed to do away with the tendency of evaluating events in its culture from a negative perspective. ''Cultural education must not be looked at merely as entertainment, but as an embodiment of social issues that affect the youth and which can be explored through the arts.''