Accra, Nov. 25, GNA 96 Students of the Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) were on Saturday urged to use their engineering knowledge to make information available to people at the grassroots to increase their well-being and enhance development.

Dr Steve Eskow, President of the Electronic University, USA, said through the appropriate technology, information would be made available to the people in rural Ghana, who were in the majority but had no access to electricity.

Speaking at the first matriculation ceremony for 245 new students of the GTUC in Accra on Saturday, he said, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, many in rural Ghana were not on the electricity grid, or could not afford to purchase electricity and had no choice than to sit in darkness or burn kerosene and wood.

The students, who matriculated included 219 men and 26 women, and would, among other things, take courses in Telecommunication Engineering and Information Technology Dr. Eskow said these people spent about 70 US dollars or more a year for kerosene, an unhealthy and dangerous way to make light, and that there was the need for a commitment to search for a way to end the use of kerosene in Ghana and Africa as whole.

He urged the students to help bring solar light, by using the appropriate technology to produce more white Light Emitting Diode, (LED) which used a fraction of the electricity of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs but last many years to be used in the rural areas instead of kerosene.

Dr. Eskow said :=94Think about the children trying to study by kerosene, inhaling smoke as they study by a light that is really too dim for prolonged reading=94 adding that kerosene was toxic, dangerous to those who inhaled its fumes and damaging to the environment. He said those low-cost solar light would help enrich instructions in the schools, provide information to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS and malaria and improve the income of subsistence farmers to improve their standard of living.

He said the students should use the appropriate Information and Communication Technology and to make service-learning as part of their university programme to engage in meaningful service to the poor in real world setting.

Dr. Osei Darkwa, Principal of the GTUC said the University was interested in putting science and technology in the service of the people and that it would do its best to prepare the students to meet the challenges ahead.

Mr. Frode Haugen, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Telecom said higher education was necessary to enable the country to cope with the many challenges of the increasingly complex world and to attain her potential in the 21st century.

He said Ghana Telecom would support the University College with all the technological tools that would enhance education to help the students apply their newly acquired skills to the solution of Ghana's technology problems. 25 Nov. 06