Untapped Troves Of Experience

The possibility of tapping into the rich experience of retired professionals in the country continues to pop up in informal conversations among concerned Ghanaians.

We could not agree more with the suggestions considering the countless trove of experienced retired professionals in the fields of policing, intelligence, teaching, medicine and many others, some of them with foreign background to their credits.

They have labored for many years to become experts in the various disciplines and so to watch these skills locked up in their heads with no means of putting them to use does not make sense at all; more so, since we are developing as a nation.

With most of these retired persons not eager to write their memoirs from which their rich and invaluable experience could be tapped for the benefit of the up and coming professionals, the only way to tap into these troves is by engaging them in assorted ramifications.

Some of them, we are aware, are wary of raising their heads above the parapet in a country where so-called young empty experts make so much noise in the media often politicising their invective-laced submissions.

Why don't we, for instance, have retired security personnel such as former IGPs and others contribute their experiences through a subtly arranged platform away from public glare.

Some of these retired personnel can be engaged to occasionally render talks to recruits at police training schools and to officer-cadets at the Police College or the Ghana Military Academy.

Such talks can present to the recruits and cadets role models from whose experiences they can learn.

Experience is earned over several years, even decades, the value of which is immeasurable.  That is why we must explore appropriate ways of leveraging upon this attribute.

A retired IGP, can for instance, impart restricted knowledge to others about how they managed certain critical subjects during their tenures.

Dealing with politicians at the helm in the country is a delicate subject, the ropes of which cannot be found anywhere in textbooks. Others who held such positions can, however, divulge how they dealt with outstanding conundrums.

The executive arm of government, with its responsibility over all departments of state, including the taking of decisions and giving of orders with direct impact over for instance, law enforcement, can sometimes meet with issues not in the interest of wise policing. How is the Chief Constable able to wriggle his way out of such a challenge without incurring the wrath of the executive? This is where the experience of how others addressed a similar situation in the past comes in.

An appropriate platform, as suggested in a previous paragraph, could serve the purpose of this goal.

The same can be replicated for other disciplines where there is no dearth of experienced retired chief directors and many others their knowledge dormant and untapped for national development.

Imagine having retired headmasters delivering lectures at teacher training colleges to students about what they went through in their days without computers and other gadgets associated with hi-tech and managing  wayward students, the effects would be impactful.