Stakeholders in the educational field have advocated for a review of the education system in Ghana, moving away from the traditional theory of learning and towards the practical aspects.
At a three-day Global Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and Computing Education Summit in Accra, stakeholders said the government’s efforts to promote STEM education could be more effective if Ghana’s education system focused more on the practical.
The Bountiful Technologies 2023 Global Summit brought together educational stakeholders from Ghana, Sweden, and the United States of America, among others, to discuss how to get resources to create a sustainable STEM education in Ghana.
Speaking on the theme “Rethinking the State of STEM and Computing Education in Ghana,” Reverend John Ntim Fordjor, Deputy Minister of Education, urged the private sector to join the government’s efforts to promote STEM education in the country.
He stated that collaborating with the government on this initiative would be extremely beneficial to the institutions, adding that it would provide students with the necessary skills and shape them for the job market.
According to the Deputy Minister, the government is focused on STEM education and thus will require collaboration with all, particularly private institutions and investors, to play a key role in the development of holistic education in the country.
David Prah, Deputy Director General for Ghana TVET Services, stated that the youth are very interested in TVET education and that getting involved with STEM would be very beneficial to the sector.
The summit’s rationale, according to Seth Ogoe Ayim, Chief Executive Officer of Bountiful Technologies, was to train, share ideas, and look for resources and logistics to better promote STEM education in Ghana.
He reiterated the need for the government to consider resources and the training of teachers to make the STEM programme effective, however, his outfit would collaborate with some institutions to get resources for teachers.
“In the next five years, I want to see Ghana export STEM skills to the world because, due to time zones, it is easier to work from Ghana to Europe,” he added.
Ayim explained that there are more boys than girls in STEM education, adding that over the last ten years, they have trained over 30, 000 students, with girls accounting for 40% of our programmes.
Ghana’s educational system, according to Dr. Paul Kwame Ampadu, Chief Diversity Officer of Virginia Technology, is overly focused on knowledge acquisition rather than practical skill development.
He argued that it was time for a restructuring to offer students a range of options to better prepare them for the workforce.
Professor Niklas Lavesson, an expert in artificial intelligence at Sweden’s Blekinge Institute of Technology, stated that because Ghana played a leading role in Africa, it was critical to take STEM education seriously and to support more female participation in the field.
