Female enrolment at the School of Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has increased from four in the early 1980s to 200 this year. Mrs Araba Intsiful, a lecturer at the Department of Engineering, KNUST, who disclosed this, attributed the significant increase to the Science, Technology and Mathematics Education (STME) clinic for girls initiated about 15 years ago.
She said this at the opening of a six-day STME clinic for girls in the Kumasi metropolitan area at the Saint Louis Training College in Kumasi. Mrs Intsiful said, for instance the Mechanical Engineering Department, hitherto the preserve of men, has 12 women and hoped the figure would increase in the coming years.
Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, the Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive, appealed to girl students to pursue higher education and acquire employable skills to help break "the dependency syndrome" associated with Ghanaian women.
