Ghana to be centre of academic excellence — Envoy
The government is repositioning the country as a regional centre of academic excellence, technological innovation and human capital development.
Consequently, the necessary infrastructure and policies are being put in place towards the attainment of the objective.
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Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States of America, Dr Baffour Adjei Bawuah, announced this when a delegation from Lifelink Friendship Schools –Ghana, paid a courtesy call on him at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington DC.
Educational advancement
According to Ambassador Bawuah, aside seeking to be a major competitor in many other sectors of the economy, the government was making what he described as conscious and deliberate efforts to ensure educational advancement.
“ As you may be aware, back home significant progress is being made without compromising access, and this is so important,” Ambassador Bawuah told the visiting students.
Havard MUN 2020
The students, numbering 39, were in the United States to represent Ghana in this year’s Havard Model United Nations (MUN) 2020 at the Harvard University in Boston, where they excelled in the Resolution Project Awards which seeks to offer funding to fellows of the Harvard MUN with transformative social venture ideas.
The Resolution Project is an initiative by the organisers of the Harvard University MUN to offer financial incentive or funding to best pitched ideas by delegates aim at solving simple problems in communities they live in.
All five projects by the Ghanaian students made it to the final stages of the awards where the students had to pitch their ideas before a panel of judges made up of an array of academicians and industry captains.
In the end, four projects won honours and funding for implementation.
Projects of honour
They are the Anyemi Literacy Project by Elsie Tetteh of KNUST and Keith Cleland and Stephanie Darko, both from the University of Ghana which seeks to enhance the literacy skills of pupils in an orphanage in the Eastern Region, while Booksville Ghana, a project by Ewurama Jenkins and Sedinam Botwe from University of Ghana seeks to offer mobile library services to Ghanaian children.
The third project, known as The PADucation Project, an initiative of Samuel Boakye-Appiah of the University of Ghana and his two other colleagues, Kofi Boakye-Appiah and Michael Oppong, both from KNUST, focused on promoting good menstrual hygiene and education for students in Ningo Prampram in the Greater Accra Region.
The last project was Save Our Soles, an initiative to provide footwear to school children in Argoko, a community in rural Volta Region, who walk five kilometres barefooted daily, was recognised for honour. The project was conceived by Susan Sena Azasoo (Radford University), Ewoenam Esi Abaloo (University of Ghana) and Emmanuella Biney (KNUST).
Interaction
While in the US, the students also toured educational and historical installations, including the Capitol Hill, the White House and the Ghana Mission in Washington DC.
The students also interacted with Ghana’s Minister for Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, who was on a visit to the United States.
He congratulated them for making Ghana proud and asked them to take their academic lessons seriously.
The delegation was led by the Executive Director of Lifelink Friendship Schools-Ghana, Mr Ernest Gyimah Danquah, and Mr Kwasi Okrah, a Faculty Advisor.
They have since returned to Ghana.
