Retired professors and researchers of science and technology are ready to help promote a scientific renaissance in Ghana given the needed support from government, Professor George Benneh, an emeritus professor of geography and resource development on Tuesday said.
He said under the National Forum for Research, Science and Technology, which was formed nearly a decade ago, retired professors, researchers and active scientists, were working hard to drum home the important truth of making science and technology the centre of all development activities in Ghana.
Prof. Benneh, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, was speaking when he led members of the scientific National Forum to pay a courtesy call on Mr Seth Terkper, Finance and Economic Planning Minister in Accra.
The meeting was to inform the Minister of the National Forum’s activities and its upcoming national conference slated for May 2014 in Accra as well as to solicit for Government’s support.
“Our young ones in Senior High Schools need to be taught the new frontiers of science and technology. They need to benefit from the knowledge of retired scientists and researchers to help develop the country,” Prof Benneh said.
He said the Forum had organised a number of regional seminars in the Western, Greater Accra, and Eastern regions on the need to stop paying lip service to the development of science and technology but had been constrained due to lack of adequate funds.
Professor F.K.A Allotey, a member of the Forum and former Chairman, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, also stressed: “without the injection of science and technology, we cannot make it as a country.”
“If a country wants to progress, it has to devote much time to the development of its science and technology,” Prof Alottey said and noted that the Forum particularly believed government needed to give the application of science and technology the attention it deserved to accelerate socio-economic development.
He said it was based on that that the Forum aims to raise the needed awareness that would help position science and technology application in its proper place in national development.
Finance Minister Mr Terkper expressed his gratitude to the two professors and the other members of the Forum for calling on him, saying “I am happy to know that even after retirement you still want to help in the nation’s development.”
He promised to provide the needed support to the Forum and urged it to extend its collaboration to ministries such as Science, Environment and Technology and Education to push forward its goals and aims.
A copy of a report on previous Forum’s activities was presented to the Minister.
The 2014 Conference on the theme: “Application of Science and Technology, Innovation for sustainable development for the ECOWAS region,” aims to attract researchers, scientists and technology experts from across the region and beyond.
The Forum has been working in collaboration with key institutions like the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in carrying out its activities.
Through such collaboration, the Forum is finding solutions to a number of issues including, measurements and weights at marketing centres in Accra, which are very useful for the country’s overall development agenda.
Other Forum members, who joined the two professors to call on the Finance Minister, were Mrs Georgina Quaisie, Head Science Education Unit of the Ghana Education Service; Mr Augustus Owusu Agyemfra, Secretary to the Forum; Reverend Joana Koranteng, Coordinator, Science, Technical and Mathematics of GES, and Mr Lawrence Quartey, a media practitioner.
