SPRING Alumni brainstorm on urban planning in Ghana

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - Dr William Ahadzie, Chief Executive Officer, National Identification Authority, has appealed to the country's development planners and managers to come together to form a strong association to bring back planning to Ghana.

He said the absence of a formidable and united front for planners was making it difficult for the professionals to speak out their views on planning initiatives and policy issues. Mr Ahadzie was speaking at the just-ended Ghana Association of SPRING Alumni workshop to discuss urban planning in Ghana and the role of the Alumni Portal Deutschland for networking among Ghanaian development planners.

In 1984 the governments of Ghana and the Federal Republic of Germany entered into a cooperation agreement to train students in Development Planning and Management for the developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The Department of Planning at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the Spatial Planning for Regions in Growing Economies (SPRING) Centre at the then University of Dortmund, now Dortmund University of Technology, Germany, were the two tertiary institutions assigned the responsibility of prosecuting the cooperation. The Programme was designed such that students pursued the first year at the University of Dortmund and were awarded a Post Graduate Diploma in Regional Planning and the second year at the KNUST, qualifying students for the award of a Masters Degree in Development Planning and Management. The objective of this arrangement was to ensure that graduates returned to their respective countries to contribute to national development. The University of Dortmund entered into similar partnership agreements with the University of Philippines, the ARDI in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the Univerdad Astral de Chile.

That gave the students an opportunity to choose to do their second year either in Ghana or Tanzania, the Philippines or Chile, which gave the programme an international dimension and status with students now being awarded joint certificates.

Dr Ahadzie, who is also an alumnus, stressed the need for development planners to respond to the technological challenges to be abreast with time. "We had very useful training from Dortmund and I believe we will apply all those techniques to ensure the sustainability of the association," he said.

He said the formation of the alumni was long overdue as Ghana was one of the first countries to start the SPRING programme and urged members to carry the association forward by frequent publications, organising seminars and conferences to let their voices be heard.

Dr Imoro Braimah, Director, SPRING Programme at KNUST, said although Ghana had the greatest number of alumni they were not able to come together till now and he was grateful for the organisers for their sacrifice. He said the cooperation agreement between the Dortmund University of Technology and the KNUST had undergone several changes. "Five years ago the SPRING Programme in Ghana took on a new dimension. The first year started in Ghana and so Ghanaians no longer went to Germany for the first year but Ghana still received students from other countries who did the first year in Dortmund.

"In 2008 the main financier of the SPRING Programme, DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service - commissioned an independent evaluation of both Dortmund and Ghana SPRING Centres. The evaluation recommended the return of Ghanaian students to Dortmund and the opening of the Ghanaian centre to the entire world just like Dortmund," he said.

Dr Braimah said the Cooperation agreement had produced over 100 Ghanaian Professional Planners who were at moment engaged all over the world in various fields and the majority of them were working in the country and making significant contributions to the development of Ghana.

Mrs Katharina Samann, a Representative of Technical University of Dortmud, said the SPRING programme had not only been intellectually stimulating but "the many interdisciplinary and extracurricular activities had contributed and still contribute to my sense of having life-long ties with the programme" and urged both past and present recipients to be dedicated to its success.

She said over the years, SPRING had become one of the most successful international degree programmes in Germany and was virtually a "brand name". "Indeed, in September we celebrated its tremendous success on the programme's 25th anniversary. It was a big family reunion." Mrs Samann said since its inauguration in 1984, the programme had travelled around the world and "today five university partners on four continents shaped this unique program".

"Over the years almost 600 students have successfully completed the Masters programme - including those who have done both years in Kumasi. The largest group of graduates are, of course, are Ghanaians - almost 100 followed by graduates from the Philippines." The SPRING programme was initially sponsored by quite a number of organisations in Germany but the bulk of the funding was provided by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Apart from the SPRING programme, DAAD supports a number of Ghanaians in other courses at various levels especially at the Masters and PhD levels in various educational institutions in Germany and in Ghana. It also supports research works and provides funding for activities that aim at enhancing human knowledge. One of the key attributes of DAAD is that it maintains its relationship with past recipient of its support. 11 Nov. 09