STEM education critical for national devt— Ntim Fordjour
A Deputy Minister of Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, has underscored the need for the country to refocus its educational system in order to align it in the direction the world is going in the next 20 to 30 years.
The direction, he said, was in the area of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the key driving force of the world which must be supported by all.
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Rev. Ntim Fordjour said this in Accra last Thursday when he launched this year’s STEM Festival organised by Primetime Limited as part of the 2021 National Science and Maths Quiz (NSMQ).
Primary school
Rev. Fordjour said it was sad that 65 per cent of the jobs children in primary school would do when they grow up would not be available as they would be automated, changed and altered in the way they were being done, as technology, artificial intelligence, advanced science and research and robotics would take over.
He said STEM education was one of the top priorities of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s educational agenda, and that in line with that, 11 state of the art STEM schools were at various stages of completion.
According to him the world was changing so fast, driven by technology and that countries that were going to be competitive were those that would adequately deploy suitable and appropriate technology in every sphere of life from accounting to finance as well as other non-technical fields, including marketing.
Flagship
The Managing Director of Primetime Limited, Mrs Nana Akua Ankomah-Asare, said the Sci-Tech Fair and mentorship sessions started as gap-fillers on Primetime flagship programme, the NSMQ, and gradually grew to become the two major events of the science festival component of what became known as the NSMQ Festival.
"Gap-fillers because we realised that the teams and their supporters, at the time, stayed until the end of the month-long competition and did not have much to occupy them, apart from preparing for the contest, participating in them, or watching contests and cheering for their teams.
“We realised that there was a lot more we could do to fill the empty hours in camp and occupy them in a particular way while they were at the competition,” he said.
Sessions
The mentorship sessions, she said, originally started as a pep talk she used to have with the contestants to ease them into the programme and encouraged them to keep their spirits up when they were losing their contest.
The Sci-Tech Fair, which was introduced in 2017, Mrs Ankomah-Asare said, was an innovative and practical complement to the NSMQ, as a way to add more value to the programme and to the experience of participants on the programme.
Digital led
The Director of Marketing and Corporate Relations of Absa Bank Ghana Limited, Mrs Nana Essilfuah Tamakloe, said as a digitally-led forward looking bank, it would continue to partner with relevant private and public stakeholders to help build the right skills in young people and positively shape their future and the country's development.