Renowned industrialist kicks against politicising education

An industrialist, Mr Kwaku Appiah Menkah, has underscored the need for stakeholders to refrain from politicising issues relating to education in the country.

Polarising such issues, he said, was detrimental to national development since this was dependent on the quality of education given the youth.

He was speaking at a press briefing preceding the 75th anniversary celebration of the Abuakwa State College (ABUSCO), in Accra Thursday.

ABUSCO was established by a traditional ruler of the Akim-Abuakwa State, Nana Sir Ofori-Atta I in 1937, to serve the educational needs of the people, but has grown to serve the needs of the nation.

The anniversary to be held on the theme: “Positioning the Educational Vision of Our Forefathers in the Emerging Age of Technology”, is to be held between October 11 and 13, this year.

As part of preparations towards the celebration, activities including health screening, anniversary lectures, durbar and sporting activities would be held to bring together old students of the school.

Mr Appiah Menkah, who is one of the pioneers of the school, said the values of growth and development were gradually disappearing while partisan political polarisation of important national issues, corruption and tribalism were creeping into the society.

He expressed dissatisfaction at the constant change in duration of the senior high school system, saying that if education was prioritised, adequate investments would be made in that respect.

“The future of this country depends on the type of education we model for our future,” he added.

Recounting the vision of the founders of ABUSCO — to educate the people to take part in the administration of the country at the time, he suggested that such vision be redirected to answer the challenges of current times.

Mr Appiah Menkah advocated the restructuring of the educational system to suit modern times in order to raise problem-solving youth to facilitate effective roles of the youth in Africa’s revolution.

“We already let the industrial revolution pass us by; we cannot let the technological age also go by. It’s either we join the global village of the information age or be left behind”, he said.