MAKE SCIENCE EDUCATION COMPULSORY (PAGE 43)

A study commissioned by the University of Ghana, Legon, has recommended that science education should be made compulsory for all students seeking admission to the university.
This is to help address the situation where science admission represented only 20 per cent of the total number of students of the university.
Prof. Kwasi Yankah, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, who announced this at the Development Dialogue Series of the university at Legon, said at present the government policy of making science to occupy 60 per cent of the faculties of the university had not been achieved.
He said the university, therefore, commissioned the study to take drastic measures to arrest the situation.
Prof. Yankah said the university had studied the recommendations and had accepted to implement them to raise the level of science education in the country to meet the manpower needs of the country.
He said as part of making science play great role in the affairs of the university a new Faculty of Engineering had been established to groom qualified personnel for the new areas of the economy such as the oil find.
He said instead of the country putting in place measures to make the best economic gains from the oil discovery some Ghanaians, especially chiefs, were entangled in litigation over who owned the lands where the oil was discovered.
Mr Justin Yifu Lin, Chief Economist of the World Bank, who delivered a paper on the topic, “Inclusive Growth and the Role of Knowledge — Lessons from China and East Asia,” said the economic miracle of East Asia was nothing but a strategy of following their comparative advantage and urged Ghana to do likewise.
He explained that the comparative advantage of the East Asia included cheap labour and abundant raw materials.
Mr Lin said because the Asians did not have capital at that time they concentrated on labour-intensive industries such as textiles and electrical cables manufacturing.
He said the capital accumulated was then used to acquire capital-intensive industries such as pharmaceuticals and petrochemical industries
Mr Lin said Ghana could follow their comparative advantage in shea-butter and cocoa industries by upgrading gradually into the manufacturing of cosmetics, which was in high demand on the international market.
The Chief Economist said France for example had no major export than wine and cheese and other agricultural goods where France was exploiting its comparative advantages.