University of Ghana’s new strategic plan and national development

The new Strategic Plan of the University of Ghana spanning the period up to 2024 was launched with much ceremony and optimism on December 18, 2014. In his speech preceding the formal launch, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Ernest Aryeetey, gave further insights and perspective to the overall strategic direction of the University.

The vision as stated in the Strategic Plan is to “become a ‘World-Class research-intensive University’ over the next decade.” To achieve this vision, the University will ‘create an enabling environment that makes University of Ghana increasingly relevant to national and global development through cutting-edge research as well as high quality teaching and learning.’

 Various speakers took turns to emphasise the point that the plan was anchored on earlier foundations laid by previous vice chancellors, and this sense of linkage and continuity was buttressed by the symbolism of the presence of Professor Akilakpa Sawyer, Professor Ivan Addae-Mensah Mensah and Professor C.N.B. Tagoe.

Objectives of the University

Commenting on the practical value of the Strategic Plan, Professor Aryeetey indicated, among other things, that one of the objectives of the university would be to assist the government to change the course of national development and to restructure the economy and make it more industrial. 

These are profound statements that impinge directly on the relevance of university education and its contribution towards tackling the generating causes of the country’s underdevelopment. And the indicators of our underdevelopment can be found in our technological retardation, prostrate external dependence and industrial backwardness, all of which reflect in the abysmal levels of poverty, to the extent that the quality of a typical diet of an average Ghanaian worker does not compare favourably with that of a domestic pet in some advanced industrialised countries. 

Much is, therefore, expected of a university in a country with such levels of poverty emanating from the conditions of underdevelopment. This is because in the final analysis the measure of all intellectual work, especially in an underdeveloped country, should be the extent and quality of its impact on the wellbeing of the masses of the people.

Industrialisation and national development

This is the context in which the university’s commitment to assist in the structural and industrial transformation of the country assumes special significance. The reason is that industrialisation is widely perceived as synonymous with national development. Arguments in favour of industrialisation have all its role in accelerating economic development as a direct result of an overall increase in the national manufacturing and production capacity. And as modern employment opportunities expand, there is a corresponding improvement in the standard of living and quality of life of the general citizenry. 

Industrialisation and the associated technological innovations also contribute to boosting national prestige, national self-esteem and the overall confidence of the national population. And under conditions of extreme underdevelopment as in Ghana and Africa, industrialisation is an existential imperative beyond the other considerations alluded to above.

Professor Aryeetey’s call for a change in the course of national development is quite radical. Indeed, he is calling for a revolution; an intellectual revolution, as well as an economic revolution. Stripped to its barest essentials, the envisaged change means restructuring the economy away from neocolonial dependency occasioned by our status in the global economy as an enclave for the extraction of raw materials, a sort of buffer zone cultivated by imperialism to absorb the shocks of the intermittent crises of world capitalism. 

This status quo of exploitation has to change, and this can happen if we abandon the national obsession with GDP paradigms and rather place emphasis on real development. And real development in this case entails a comprehensive national effort directed towards a drastic increase in the overall productive capacity of the national economy in terms of the manufacture of not only consumer goods but of capital goods as well. Real development should focus on increasing the ability of the economy to meet the basic needs of the majority of the people from the country’s own resources. All of this will necessarily entail very high academic activity especially in the area of active research which the Strategic Plan rightly identifies as its first priority, and the research should be relevant to the mission to transform the course of our national development. 

The Strategic Plan acknowledges the correlation between research and the restructuring of the national economy when it states among other things that ‘the application of new technologies drawn from evidence-based research in areas such as agriculture and manufacturing has transformed many economies.’ 

Scholarship, no technological dev’t

If that is the case then why are Ghana and Africa lagging so ominously behind in technological development despite the continent’s relatively impressive record of scholarship? Many have assigned this to the disconnect between our educational system and our national development aspirations. 

Racist anthropology has even raised arguments about scientific and technological advancements being the exclusive reserve of some selected races. Of course the racist dimension of this argument has long been comprehensively debunked, and I would like to make some sporadic references to a few instances to demonstrate this. Despite the traumatic legacy of the Slave Trade, African slaves and their descendants defied the heavy odds and made spectacular contributions to global achievements in science and technology. The history of the industrial revolution, for example, will not be complete without the notable contributions of engineers and scientists of African descent. We can boast of such icons of engineering as Elijah McCoy who invented the automatic oil-dripping cup, air-breaks and an automatic train coupler, Norbert Rillieux who invented the sugar processing evaporator and Jan Ernst Matzeliger who invented a shoe-making machine that increased shoemaking speed by 900 per cent. There were several others.

African Americans

Fast-forwarding events to the middle of the last century, African-American scientists participated in the manufacture of the first atomic bomb, even though this particular achievement does not represent an optimistic side of the human genius. Meredith Jones invented the first automatic refrigeration system for long-haulage trucks. James Edward West holds more than 247 patents on microphones. 

Universal telephone service may not have been possible without Lincoln Hawkins whose invention drastically improved the durability of the plastic coating on telecommunication cables. Jerry Shelby, an engineer of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) invented an engine protection system for a recoverable rocket booster, and Donald Cotton invented propellants for nuclear reactors. 

Prof. Allotey’s exploits

In Ghana, Professor Allotey, former Director of the Atomic Energy Commission, is an internationally renowned Physicist, Mathematician and Computer Scientist. 

He is a world authority especially with respect to his work on Soft X-ray Spectroscopy which established the principle widely known in international physics circles as the “Allotey Formalism.”  Dr Cheikh Modibo Diarra is a Malian astrophysicist who has worked with a number of space programmes of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) of the USA participating in the Magellan and Galileo probes to the planets Venus and Jupiter respectively, the Mars Observer and Pathfinder missions as well as the Ulysses probe to the Sun’s pole. Dr Diarra currently advises Microsoft on new technologies specific to Africa. 

These examples clearly demonstrate Africa’s potential and ability to meet the highest international standards of human brainpower in the practical and theoretical sciences.

• To be continued

This brings us to another very critical question. If the much needed technological advancements are within the reach of skills and talent available to us in Ghana and Africa, then what is responsible for this technological retardation? Why did the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth century pass Africa by, but took root in Europe? 

What are the factors responsible for the present international division of labour which has consigned Africa to just primary production? Despite the enormous technological gap between us and the advanced industrialised countries, is there a possibility of catching up? With reference to the last question, can there be a shortcut, a quantum equivalent of a wormhole bypass into the future, which will make the several centuries of missing time and opportunities irrelevant? The answers to these questions are not in the domain of the pure sciences. They can only be provided by some selected disciplines in the humanities, and finding the right answers to these questions is very critical. 

Therefore, just as the Strategic Plan is emphasising, and rightly so, the scientific and technological aspects of the University’s contribution to the restructuring of our national economy, commensurate emphasis should be placed on the need to produce thinkers. In fact, the national deficit in this area largely accounts for our crisis of underdevelopment.

Identifying the main driving forces that will propel the scientific and technological transformation is another area that requires urgent attention. The Strategic Plan envisages establishing ‘University-Industry partnerships to promote research in areas of industrial/national interest.’ Under normal circumstances, local industries should, even without being prompted, be very supportive of what the country’s research institutions are doing. The problem is that the quantum of resources needed for research which would lead to the type of technological breakthrough envisaged in the Strategic Plan is well beyond the capacity of local industries.

The other argument is that local industries lack the necessary enthusiasm to commit resources into research ventures which are usually quite expensive and where the chances of success could be very minimal. Quite apart from this, our institutions of higher learning and research have over the years been unable to inspire the requisite confidence in relation to their ability to meet their obligations in the national development effort. In other words if research activities undertaken in the universities demonstrate their practical relevance to the national transformation drive, there would be a corresponding rise in the level of national enthusiasm which would in turn galvanise stakeholders to commit resources into the research effort. For example, at the turn of last century when the young Niels Bohr developed his quantum theory which provided some new and revolutionary insights into the structure of the atom, he became a national hero instantly in his native Denmark, and mobilising resources for research became much easier. And this was to the extent that a beer producing company, Carlsberg Breweries, with a completely different frame of reference, provided funding for Niels Bohr’s new research institute which eventually grew to become a leading centre for theoretical physics.   

Whereas industry has played and continues to play critical roles in the technological advancements of the highly industrialised countries, the conditions are quite different in our present circumstance as an underdeveloped country. Those industrial enterprises that have the capacity to plough back parts of their profits in sufficient amounts for meaningful research are mainly foreign-owned multinationals. Unfortunately these enterprises are not favourably disposed to our technological advancements and have even often frustrated it. The Research and Development (R&D) units of these multinationals are invariably located in their mother countries completely out of the site of our local scientists and engineers. This situation denies our scientists and technicians the chance to observe, study, and possibly replicate and internalise the processes of the research and development programmes and the technologies emanating from them. And even in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa where local laws occasionally compel such foreign companies to engage local technical expertise, our scientists and engineers are most often marooned in plush offices with little to do except relaying files from one office to another just like stereotypical bureaucrats. 

Government’s role

The role of the government or the state in this equation is therefore very critical especially as the Strategic Plan makes reference to research in areas of both industrial and national interests. Whereas industry’s interest in research is geared towards the possibility of maximising profits, some types of research may not directly lead to financial gain but nevertheless are of critical national interest.  

Once at a meeting, I put a question to a representative of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) after he had made a strong argument for our educational system to tilt heavily towards the sciences. My question related to a hypothetical situation where our universities turned out graduates in only such disciplines as physics, mathematics, chemistry, botany, crop science and such related subjects. How would the employment demographics change? Professor Aryeetey took the matter up with the AGI representative. Translating things into the language of an economist, he related the issue to the interplay between supply and demand in the job market and argued that it was important for industry to create the conditions that would open up the relevant job opportunities for graduates in the sciences. 

Indeed while industry should be encouraged and supported to increase its capacity to create such job openings, in the final analysis it is the state which has to lead this effort. The gestation period for our local industries to grow up to a point sufficiently resourceful enough to fulfil this obligation expected of it is too open-ended. The timetable implied in this laissez-faire approach is simply not feasible for a country or a continent stagnating in close proximity to the Stone Age relative to the technologically advanced countries. Our industrial retardation is of such depths that it should be considered as a national emergency, and time is a very critical factor. What is therefore required is a state-driven, militant and no-nonsense programme of technological transformation involving the total mobilisation of national resources and especially national brainpower under a slogan: Wake up and Catch up! The University’s mission and vision would then feed into this national emergency programme. 

Another Ghana, another Africa is possible. I could sense this in the pulse of the Vice Chancellor’s speech. A towering figure well above six feet, Professor Aryeetey is pushing through equally colossal changes in the University in order to position it to play its expected role in the national development effort and beyond. He recently reiterated this commitment in his New Year message to the University community when he encouraged colleagues ‘to work together for a better University that will support Ghana's progress.’ At his induction into office to begin his first term as Vice Chancellor, he pledged to transform the University of Ghana into a World-Class University, and at the launch of the University’s Strategic Plan, he explained in detail what he meant by that. The climax of it all was when he indicated that he looked forward to the day when the University would produce a Nobel Laureate. The challenge is to reach for the highest heavens, he seems to be suggesting, and whatever the outcome of this attempt, we will still be among the stars. He has the support of the University community, but more crucially, he needs government’s support and understanding.