Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor and four other prominent Ghanaians have been honoured with Membership into the University of Ghana Alumni Association.
At the 28th Alumni Lecture on Thursday, Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana (UG), Emerita Professor Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, former Director of the Language Centre, UG, Professor John Owusu Gyapong, the former Pro-Vice Chancellor and Current Vice Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, and Mr Kofi Esson, former Chief of Staff at Tullow Oil Ghana Limited, were honoured to become members of the Alumni.
Paa Kwesi Yankey, the Chairman of the University of Ghana Alumni Association, said the honorary membership was conferred on prominent members of the society who did not attend the University of Ghana but had in divers ways served or helped the university to be ‘a go to university’.
He said the individuals had contributed immensely to the development of the university and, therefore, the need to make them honorary members of the Association.
Speaking on the topic: ‘Who is ‘them’? Governance in the Educational Sphere,’ at the Great Hall of the university, Dr (Mrs) Myma Belo-Osagie, the Senior Managing Partner with Udo Udoma and Belo-Osagie, a leading Nigerian Corporate Law Firm, said the importance of education could not be overemphasised and all must come together to build a solid educational sector for Ghana.
She said: ‘The onus lies on employers to expect or demand excellence in the fundamentals of the education given to our children – these fundamentals being, in particular, numeracy and literacy.”
Dr Belo-Osagie said there was the need for the culture of excellence to be implanted in the current generation so they could thrive in any adventure.
She said in order to excel the children should have access to comprehensive grammar books and well written literature and be taught how to communicate current technological and scientific concepts accurately and clearly.
“The writing of plays, movie scripts, television scripts, poetry and digital media content in Akan should be encouraged as should research on the language, proverbs and sayings,” she said.
Dr Belo-Osagie said she was interested in the ‘education that imparts knowledge but is also purposeful in that it seeks to achieve, or support the achievement of, a particular goal or objective.”
She suggested that in order to better the lives of Ghanaians through economic development, the knowledge coming from, or generated by, the educational institutions must be education that did not only respond to the social, political and economic context of the country but also took cognisance of what the future of the country ought to look like.
Dr Bello-Osagie said there was the need for the right kind of education at both the individual and national level in order to achieve the ultimate goal to consistently improve the quality of the lives of the citizens.
“If we accept that empirical research has shown that education is indeed one of the most important determinant of economic growth and that the greatest economic growth is achieved by countries which produce students with strong skills and deep knowledge, then education is not only important for each individual child, it is also essential for our country as a whole,” she said.
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