Adopt Good Development Practices Of S. Korea
Ghanaian graduates of Korean educational institutions and training programmes have stressed the need for Ghana to adopt the good development practices that propelled South Korea into a world economic giant.
One of the best practices they recommended is for Ghanaians to be self-reliant and endeavour to build their communities without relying on the government’s support.
Sharing their experiences from their academic pursuits in South Korea at a workshop in Accra, members of the Korean Alumni Association in Ghana said the people of South Korea built their own communities without relying on the government.
“This is what Ghana needs at the moment”, they observed, “But unfortunately, Ghanaians are too much reliant on the government to do everything”.
“When I went to Korea, I saw ordinary people doing extraordinary things”, remarked one of the beneficiaries of Korean scholarship.
The workshop was organised by the Korean International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) in Accra with the view to fostering partnership among the Korean scholars in Ghana.
The Korean alumni said they were very much inspired by the “can-do” spirit of South Koreans, which underlined the development of that country, adding that their studies in South Korea had brought tremendous improvement to their lives.
They were also thrilled by the cleanliness of South Korea, saying that although the people used plastic polythene bags as much as Ghanaians did, “they are very clean”.
In spite of the positive lessons shared, some of the alumni expressed concern about their inability to put their knowledge into practice at their workplaces due to their new roles which were different from what they had studied and, sometimes, impediments from their bosses.
The President of the Korean Alumni Association in Ghana, Mr David Agbale, urged KOICA to give scholarships to groups, rather than individuals, in order to make greater impact on their jobs when they returned home.
He called on KOICA to follow up on, and assess the performance of the scholars in order to ensure that they put into practice, what they had learnt from South Korea.
The Resident Representative of KOICA, So-young Kim, said KOICA was in the process of creating more scholarships and expanding the duration of programmes, with the view to increasing the number of beneficiaries and making greater impact.
She encouraged members of the alumni association to have more interactions among themselves to share ideas and experiences.
Earlier, an alumnus, Mr George Owusu-Ansah Amoah, made a presentation on his Master’s degree thesis on the topic: “Issues involved in improving Ghana’s trade with the rest of Africa”.
He stressed the need for the country to address the factors that undermined increased exports and trade between Ghana and other African countries.
In that regard, he suggested the construction of a highway linking Ghana and Togo, for instance, to be manned by a joint Ghana-Togo customs officials with the view to minimising the number of road check points and the associated inconveniences that traders went thorugh.