THE COMPUTER-Science department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is woefully under-resourced.

It lacks lecturers and adequate equipment. The department, which is supposed to train computer scientists, has only nine lecturers to handle over 500 students.

Out of this, one is on contract while two are currently on study and sabbatical leaves respectively. The department also has 95 computers.

These came to light during the launching of the computer science society in Kumasi. The theme for the occasion was ICT - the global challenge and the role of the computer scientist.

The minister for Communication and Technology, Albert Kan-Dapaah, said "information, communication and technology is being harnessed to improve the efficiency, accessibility and quality of the learning process around the globe."

According to him, "computer scientists have an enormous task of changing the face of the globe by using ICT as an enabler for development.

The communications minister continued that, "computer scientists have played an important role in new data structure and devised new ways of representing knowledge, developing programming languages and families of computers."

He urged computer scientists to be collaborators to all the sectors of the economy and act as an enabler for the development of the country. Since the world has become a global village.

"Gone are the days when we used our knowledge and experience to contribute to income generation and production, but now ICT provides solutions in the sharing of information between local people and communities which enhance development in productivity" he challenged the students.

According to Kan-Dapaah, ICT can be a very powerful enabler of developmental goals, because of its unique characteristics which will improve communication and the exchange of information to strengthen and create new economic and social networks and help bridge the digital gender and age divide.

As part of assisting computer science students in the country, the Ministry of Communication and Technology in collaboration with the Indian government is putting up a computer science resource centre dubbed Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence which will cater for computer science education in the country.

The minister appealed to all stakeholders in the educational sector, especially industries and companies, to open their doors to the students to enjoy the field training since the academic work alone cannot help the students to up-grade their knowledge and skills in general.