Open Letter To All Stakeholders In Education

BY PROF. K. O. KESSEY Retired Professor of Mechanical Engineering

ENGINEERING EDUCATION ON KUMASI CAMPUS

FIRST SEGMENT

I am humbly writing through our esteemed newspapers to share my thoughts on the above and related subjects with all of you stakeholders in education.

It is my humble observation that Education in Science and Technology, particularly in Engineering Technology, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) appears to be quickly losing its ground and importance in Ghana's development because the nation seems to have lost the initial vision and focus of the founding fathers of the university. I have been wondering why this is so. Please, permit me to offer the following as some of the reasons.

I observe with mixed feelings the fact that the KNUST is being overcrowded with many departments or colleges, thus overshadowing particularly engineering education on the KNUST campus to the advantage of other disciplines. In my view, this is one of the fundamental causes of the apparently gradual decline (neglect?) of engineering education on the Kumasi campus.

Engineering science and technology has suffered and continues to suffer the most due to the establishment of several disciplines on the KNUST campus since they compete for the already slender government subvention to the University. To train engineers in particular requires very expensive, physical inputs unlike other disciplines. Obviously, these non-engineering fields also equally qualify for their share of government subvention once they exist on the same campus since they are also required to perform efficiently.

I humbly submit that the old-age principle of equal share of scarce resources in order to allow every department of government-supported University equal opportunity for growth, though laudable in principle, is in practice gradually killing the unique character of promoting Science and Technology at KNUST for which the university was established. Engineering Technology and Education in particular is now suffering!

Departments which were originally meant to be service departments appear to be now equally empowered to compete for scarce resources of KNUST. And so, in the course of time, these departments have naturally assumed such stature as to defeat the main purpose of the KNUST in developing Engineering Science and Technology for national development.

Undoubtedly, all departments are very important for the development of the nation. However, fortunately, the non-engineering departments are also found in other Universities in the country particularly at the University of Ghana, Legon, where they are rightly placed to compete and grow in their own right like the others on those campuses. Engineering Education does not have this additional benefit (luxury?) elsewhere in the country. It depends only on government subvention to the KNUST!

Arguably, for the KNUST to assume the true character of a University, departments other than those of Engineering, Science, and Technology should be established on the Kumasi campus. Indeed, there are two compelling reasons why several departments or colleges may be created on the KNUST campus besides those of engineering, like anywhere else.

Their presence is good for the University as a whole and for the Technologist in particular. Obviously, the presence of several departments may provide not only service departments to the parent or foundation disciplines but also a stimulus for broadening the outlook and education of the individual when students of several disciplines interact in several ways outside the classroom. However, the conglomeration of departments has now blurred the initial vision of the KNUST founding fathers since such departments have competed equally for resources (for example, GETFUND) with the original establishments of the University. In effect, Engineering Education on KNUST campus in particular has ultimately suffered a lot.

We may recall the mass resignation of engineering lecturers from Kumasi in the nineteen-seventies. That situation arose from our dissatisfaction with the principle of equal salaries for engineering and other university lecturers since we felt that the teaching of engineering has its peculiar greater responsibilities. The exodus almost succeeded in breaking down engineering studies in Kumasi. Those of us who stayed on were not more patriotic than those who left. In truth, those who stayed were less courageous in facing the uncertain Ghanaian private industrial climate than those leaving. In fact, most of those who resigned from KNUST stayed in Ghana to set up most promising consultancy services to benefit the nation, thus demonstrating their equally unalloyed patriotism to the nation.

I am afraid that as engineering classrooms are exploding with large student numbers while old engineering laboratories and workshops are being scantily supported and equipped, in addition to the use of obsolete equipment and provision of scanty financial support and so on, engineering education on the KNUST campus is collapsing or dying a slow death. Obviously, with large numbers, students hardly benefit from workshop technology, for example, when unduly large student numbers crowd around one demonstration unit, thus leading to a natural fall in standards. I wonder whether Engineering Education is now becoming ‘Pure and not Applied Science’ Education at KNUST without adequate financial and physical inputs. To say the least, this situation naturally gives the engineering lecturer and all supporting workers very little job satisfaction and makes them grumble a lot within their bellies.

SECOND SEGMENT

The situation outside KNUST is not helping either to produce good engineers for the development of the nation. In this regard, all stakeholders in education may take equal blame in having inadvertently subjugated engineering to other fields. Under the present circumstances, there are no visible training grounds or incubators in the country for our engineering students and fresh graduates to thrive, leading to our engineering graduates, particularly mechanical engineering graduates, undertaking their national service in the high schools or non-engineering establishments.

After the national service some of our engineering graduates leave the country altogether in order to seek greener pastures outside. If they remain in the country to work in other fields, they obviously soon lose their engineering bias. I almost shrank a little when the other day I met one of my engineering students in the ninety-seventies who told me that he had just retired at sixty from permanently teaching in the secondary school since he left KNUST. I quietly admired his religious faith when he said that it was God’s will that he was on the classroom floor throughout ‘and not the factory floor’, my own addition. This is not an isolated case!

Whatever our individual persuasion or beliefs, religion aside, most good-meaning people unanimously agree that Engineering is indeed one of the gigantic backbones of every nation's physical development. This is evident in all the so-called Third World Countries, now probably called ‘Second World’, that are making leap jumps in development today. It is very sad to see that Ghana woefully lacks visible manufacturing base for engineering to flourish to benefit engineering education and consequently the nation.

The situation is undoubtedly aggravated by our penchant for buying and selling or installing imported goods, dubbed the Ghanaian Syndrome for Buying and Selling Imported Goods with the acronym GSBSIG. Our ailment GSBSIG has remained with us far too long. If we are to make the right progress in our development, this should now give way considerably (absolutely ?) to production of and desire for our own goods even if the goods we produce are not completely perfect to begin with. Perfection will come with time and even with waste and failure! Remember the story of the seven American astronauts perishing in flight not too long ago to make engineering scientists sit up to ‘perfect’ space flight when most people might have thought that American Space Programme had failed.

We are now apparently deriding Nigerians for their ‘imitation goods’ flooding our markets. We may recall the time when we were laughing at and ridiculing the Japanese during my senior elementary school years of the early nineteen-forties for their perceived inferior products. We will soon be buying Nigerian goods with relish in the same manner as we have now been clamouring for Japanese products because Japanese products favourably compare with others’ if they are not better sometimes. Very soon, Nigerian products will turn out to be prefect and not ‘imitation’ goods, I dare say! Unlike Nigerians, we Ghanaians fear the unknown entity like manufacturing. We must be bold enough to face little risks when it comes to engineering production if we are to succeed.

In the absence of visible manufacturing establishments in the country we obviously do not have the incubators for the engineering graduates we produce at the KNUST and the Polytechnics. As such, engineering education is gradually becoming less attractive. The country needs to set up urgently (and soonest!) manufacturing industries for making some of the products we require. The goods from our manufacturing industries would undoubtedly curb our propensity for imported ones while the existence of a strong industrial base would serve as training grounds for our young engineers. It may take many years to reverse this gloomy trend. But the change must start right now!

To recap, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology seems to be deviating every year more and more from its original objective of promoting Science and Technology for which it was established simply because Science and Technology (particularly Engineering) Education is being thinly supported for whatever reasons. Engineering industry is not prepared (indeed non-existent) either to supplement the training of our engineering products. Again, due to the national Syndrome for Buying and Selling or Installing Imported Goods, we now have little or no desire and encouragement to set up manufacturing industries. Hence, our engineering graduates are not retained in the country to help in the growth of industries.

I am therefore appealing to you honourable stakeholders in education and all concerned Ghanaians to use our good offices and collective will to try to resource more effectively Engineering Education on the Kumasi campus so as to reverse the current trend at the KNUST. I see clearly that Science and Technology (Engineering in particular) Education is being overshadowed. Engineering education on the Kumasi campus must be given top priority in all financial and other related considerations lest the foresight of the founding fathers of the KNUST be totally lost.

As a corollary, it must be stated that the country could benefit immensely by openly favouring or giving top priority to few select disciplines that may be deemed to be of immediate importance for the development of the nation; Such institutions may include Agriculture, Engineering, Medicine, Architecture, citing at random a few fields without any prejudice. These institutions could be infused with abundant resources to ensure accelerated growth in order to serve as centres of excellence. They could be given special and exclusive attention without interference from other fields. In any case, why duplicate same disciplines on many campuses with our scarce resources? Using the old cliché, we are ‘spreading ourselves thin’, to say the least. Admittedly, it is cheaper to expand existing institutions than to build new ones elsewhere even if for reasons of infrastructure alone.

In conclusion, one of the surest ways of ridding the nation of the present Ghanaian Syndrome of Buying and Selling imported goods is to give greater attention to Engineering Education at KNUST in order to produce good engineers to drive and energize growth in the manufacturing and production sector. This would obviously have the additional benefit of propelling the nation to the “middle-income’ economy, whatever this may mean without a solid engineering base.

Finally, I pray that this communication would not be construed by my readers as an indictment on any past or present administration, whether university or government or international. It is simply to put across some vital views of a very concerned retired Professor of Mechanical Engineering, whom, like others, this nation has produced and in reciprocity who desires to serve our country by sharing these views in his old age with all his superiors whom he deeply respects as national opinion leaders. Let us refocus now on Engineering Education!