Government urged to reward lecturers for innovations not academic papers.

Associate Professor at the University of Ghana Medical School-PROF. ALEX DUODU

An Associate Professor at the University of Ghana Medical School, Professor Alex Duodu is suggesting government considers rewarding lecturers based on innovations and not their academic papers.

Prof Duodu believes this will encourage universities to produce research tailored to solving societal challenges.

“it means that the university will be rewarded for the innovations that they bring not for academic papers”.

Ghana has often been tagged as exporting our cocoa and other raw materials raw in the face of universities through their research can add value to such materials.

He says the time is ripe for Ghana to harness its university expertise in solving its problems than resorting to foreign assistance.

For him, Ghana must close its eyes and assume that we don’t have donors and partners helping us, “let’s solve our dumsor, preserve our foods and produce for exports and solve our problems ourselves”.

He says this requires a radical transformation of the mindset of the Ghanaian.

The clinical pharmacology professor at the University of Ghana is worried many promising research work sit gathering dust at the various universities.

He is suggesting industries willing to utilize university research to enhance output and improve productivity are given tax exemptions.

“Why should industries sit with problems when universities are there, let them bring them out and if the universities can’t solve them then the industries/government would have to cry”, he questions.

According to him, we live in a knowledge-based economy which the whole world is using to create wealth and jobs making the research institutions critical to economic development.

“We have a charge to keep and a call to make so I believe that collaborative research is needed now to solve Ghanaian problems and move our economy forward”.

But Prof Duodu observes, “It appears that the researchers in our countries tend to look at themselves. Pharmacy for instance looks at pharmacy only but our problems are multi- factorial and multi-sectorial”.

He spoke to Luv News at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Week Celebration, under the theme, “Collaborative research and health-the way forward in Ghana”.

Pro-vice chancellor of the school, Rev. Professor Charles Ansah reveals plans are in place to enable inter-collegiate collaboration to target industry based research.

“ what we need to do is to look at the research again reengineer it to be able to impact on the people that we serve and particularly those in the rural areas who cannot afford basic medicine”,.

Lecturer and the Post Graduate Program Coordinator, Dr. Joseph Adu says, “Universities are supposed to be knowledge centers generating knowledge for national development as we look round we are assaulted with so many diseases”.

He says researchers must come together to solve our problems and above all create wealth, we have the freedom to do it and we must do it.

Story by Prince Appiah

Gov’t urged to increase research funding to 1% of GDP to stimulate dev’t

FORMER GIMPA DIRECTOR-PROF STEPHEN ADEI

The former Rector of Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) wants the government to increase research funding to stimulate economic growth.

Currently, the government spends about 0.38 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research, a figure Professor Stephen Adei describes as woefully inadequate.

He wants the figure to be increased, at least, to one percent.

“We must increase the quantum of the research and the quality of research should not be research to get a degree as an end in itself, but as a development instrument,” he said.

Professor Adei is also advocating for a national policy to ensure research from graduate education addresses specific economic challenges.

He spoke to LUV Biz at a public lecture in Kumasi to launch the week-long celebration of the Graduate Students Association of Ghana.

“Ideally, as a middle-income country, we should be putting at least 1 percent of our GDP into research and development then there must be a policy [to enable the research] to become relevant to our national development,” the former GIMPA Rector stated.

The Lecture where Prof Adei spoke was held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), under the theme, ‘Harmonising Research and Entrepreneurship for National Development: the Role of the Graduate Student’.

It was part of the week-long celebration of the Graduate Student Association’s annual event.

President of KNUST chapter of GRASSAG, Kusi Boakye, believes such forums hold the potential to challenge students to start their own businesses than looking up to white colour jobs.

In a related development, Associate Professor at the University of Ghana Medical School, Professor Alex Duodu, has reiterated the need for researchers to contribute to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth through research.

“The world is moving fast. We must really contribute to GDP growth and the time to start is now,” he said.

According to him, the universities must research into challenges that hold back the country’s progress.

“Government must ask the radical question to change the way universities are funded [in such a way that] funding goes to areas of importance and not blanket research and book allowance because sometimes certain incentives tend to be counterproductive,” Prof Duodo adds.

Professor Duodu, therefore, wants discussion among institutions of higher education, industry and other stakeholders to start immediately.

In the 21st century, according to the Professor, no country should rely on other countries to solve their problems for them.

He is, therefore, charging those in higher education to bring scientifically sound and credible solutions to national issues.

“Leave all the philosophy to the church and mosque but I believe that higher education should bring scientifically sound and credible solutions to national issues,” he said.

 Story by Prince Appiah

GOVERNMENT TO SET UP A NATIONAL RESEARCH FUND

Researchers in Ghana can access financial support from a special central fund being considered by government.

Deputy Minister of Education responsible for Tertiary, Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa, says government is taking steps to set up the research fund to facilitate work in all fields of the country’s endeavor.

He says the initiative is meant to permanently address the perennial conflict on research and book allowance between government and university lecturers.

Mr. Ablakwa was addressing this year’s Deeper Life Campus Fellowship Annual Congress in Kumasi.

The announcement comes days after university teachers refused to call off a strike over research and book allowance, payment of their market premium arrears.

Currently, government is spending over seven million Ghana Cedis annually on research allowances.

Lecturers receive between 500 and 600 dollars as allowances but, according to them, it is inadequate for in-depth research work.

Mr. Ablakwa believes establishing a dedicated fund for research is the way to go.

“Government has begun a process where the book and research fund will be coulisse into one fund. We want to set up a research fund because Ghana is one of the few countries without a national research fund.

“And in this era of technology and science where we need to invest in research, it is the only way we can keep up with the pace of development”, he said.

Lecturers and students from the various tertiary institutions across the country were among congress participants.

Pastor Francis Fosu, National Coordinator of the Deeper Life Campus Fellowship said “we invited such people because they are dealing with education in our country at the higher level; they are the experts in the field and in government.So we needed to collaborate with them since we are dealing with students at the higher institutions”.