Accra, July 20 GNA - Seven more eminent and internationally acknowledged scholars have been elected to the fellowship of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) at its last General meeting held on Thursday July 17, 2005.

A statement in Accra on Wednesday signed by Dr Theophilus Aquinas Ossei-Anto, Administrative Secretary of GAAS, named the new fellows as Professor Naana Opoku-Agyemang, Dean of Graduate Studies, University of Cape Coast; Prof Albert Kodzo Fiadjoe, Former Head of the Faculty of Law, University of West Indies, Barbados; Prof Takyiwaa Manu, Director, Institute of African studies, University of Ghana; Dr Eugenia Date-Bah, Former Director of Crisis Response and Reconstruction Programme, ILO, Geneva.

The rest are Prof. Francis Agbodeka, Former Head of the Department of History, University of Cape Coast; Prof. John Bonaventure Kubongpwa Kaburise, Vice Chancellor, University of Development Studies, Tamale and Prof Ralp Mills-Tettey, Registrar of the Architects Registration Council of Ghana.

The statement said GAAS, the oldest in Africa now has 85 fellows with 75 resident in Ghana and 10 abroad.

It said the academy's main mission was to encourage the creation, acquisition, dissemination and utilization of knowledge for development through the promotion of learning.

The academy has evolved over the years to become a major independent think tank that uses its platform to raise critical issues of contemporary relevance.