I just read a piece by Dr. RICHARD TIA, senior lecturer of KNUST in response to MR.KWESI PRATT for stating the fact about the lack of impact by KNUST on our national development after 50years of their existence.

Even though I don’t agree with the proponent on most of his commentaries, on this occasion, he has spoken the minds of many Ghanaians who have always questioned the usefulness of KNUST in our national development. And so, to the extent that, KNUST has never been able to solve any of our nation’s challenges, DR. Richard TIA’s response is not only inappropriate, it is reactionary, very harsh, academically pompous and opens up the universities in the country for further criticism.

Regrettably, he has rather exposed the ineptitudeness of our lecturers and also brought to the fore, weakness in both the lecturers and the universities themselves; the desk-bound nature of our lecturers, the lecturers and the universities lack of leadership, lack of innovation and the lack of an understanding of our needs as a developing nation.

First of all, it’s purely absurd for the lecturer to suggest that one wanted to see a factory on the campus or a KNUST branded cell because no reasonable being will ever expect that from a university. His responds is hence purely egoistic, insulting and arrogant from a university don.

In respect of the creation of knowledge based concept on which solar cell fabrication will be done, the question is how many of such knowledge based concepts have been developed for the past 50years by the school and how many investors and patent holders have set up business based on that knowledge.

As he admitted, they only train the students and endow them with the technical know-how without ensuring quality training in order for the graduates to fit into the job market. It is therefore not surprising that there are a lot of unemployed graduates because they don’t have quality training from the likes of DR. Richard Tia in order for them to handle the pressures of the job market.

What kind of corporate partnerships and collaboration does the school have with industry? Professor Daniel Kahne of department of chemistry and chemical biology, Harvard University, in a breakfast meeting with industry, praised that the office of Technology Development’s well-crafted corporate partnerships have enabled researchers in the school to follow their curiosity, connect with new collaborators and pursue ambitious studies than they could have done. What has KNUST done in this regard?

In respect of the work and presentation by the PhD candidate on the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials from a single source precursor for solar cell, what has been the benefit of that to us as a nation? And for the past 50 years, how many of such works have been done and how has the nation benefitted from it?

In the case of the energy center, one need not to hear about the center but one need to know and feel the impact that the center has had on the Ghanaian society as far as our energy sector is concerned?

A Harvard doctoral student, Simon Chaput, developed low power electronics that help manufacturers to incorporate haptic capabilities into mobile devices. Haptic helps mobile phone users feel the clicks, vibrations and touch sensations on our mobile phones. Anytime your phone vibrates when you tap any of the navigation buttons then that is haptic at work. What has KNUST developed for the past 50 years?

Whiles universities are advancing the development of groundbreaking discoveries by fostering important strategic collaborations with industry, KNUST has been waiting for funding from government for the past 50 years. It is said “neither you nor the world knows what you can do until you have tried.”

It’s the duty of our universities to lead in research and so if the schools are churning out graduates who don’t have quality training and cannot build on their science and technology education, then our universities have failed us.

In respect of the indelible ink saga, can Dr Richard Tia confirm to us whether the formulated indelible ink by the KNUST students was certified by the Ghana standard Authority? And also when they were denied by the EC, what did they do? I guess as a university don he knew the appropriate institutions to go after the denial by the EC. Did he or the school do that? What was he expecting the media to do for the school? Was he expecting the EC to budge because they even appeared on Kwaku Sakyi-Addo’s front page? In 2016, the made-in-Ghana policy had been introduced; did he or the school take advantage of that policy to get the appropriate institution involved so that the EC could buy their ink? Besides after the 2016 election have they engaged the EC again in respect of their indelible ink? Or they are waiting until election2020 before they approach them.

He has only confirmed the lazy, laid-back and academic attitude of our lecturers and as people who always wants to sit and wait for help from government. They just don’t take initiatives. They need to create the opportunities themselves and preserve so that they can get what they want.

Due to our consistent tight fiscal space as a nation, government is always unable to apply itself diligently to issues of national concern and I guess that has translated into successive governments’ inability to fund research institutions. But again, it behoves on you as university professors and experts to cease the minds and thoughts of these politicians and lobby them into funding research activities. For the past 50 years that governments are not funding them, what have they done? The numerous research funds that he has listed did not come from the moon but came as a result of the consistent effort of your colleague lecturers in those foreign universities years back.

It is sad that a lecturer who has been trained by the tax payers’ money thinks of doing research for a foreign country because he had funding from them. This is simply unpatriotic, illogical and very appalling. In whose name did you get the funding? I guess you got the funding because you were coming from KNUST and that you were undertaking research for KNUST and not any foreign institution. Then Ghanaians who had scholarships from foreign countries will also have to go and work for those countries and not their motherland. This is simply illogical and unacceptable.

The fact is that Schools of higher learning are driving forces for national development and they represent centers of excellence. That explains why universities in Israel are leading in research and gaining billions of dollars from patents. What has KNUST done?

Our universities have not had any meaningful impact on our development as a nation. In the light of all our agricultural, economic, social, engineering and environmental challenges, we have these professors always moving from one workshop to another only speaking grammar. Is it not appalling that as a nation we don’t even have employment data yet we have economics professors and labour experts in all our universities who cannot even lead and profess solution as to how we can develop such data in the country when employment data is purely a research activity?

Dr. Richard Tia should tell us how many of our major roads were designed and built by our engineers? How many of our many major infrastructural projects were built by our engineers from KNUST? How many of the antibiotics that we use were developed by graduates from KNUST?

Who repairs the traffic lights in Kumasi when they are faulty?Has KNUST been able to develop a prototype incinerator to even treat their own waste problems, let alone thinking of the nation in the light of the obvious sanitation challenges facing us? Yet they have an environmental engineering department at KNUST.

Ghana is a developing nation with a lot of challenges and so it behoves on each and every one of us to be proactive, innovative and persevere through our ideas, training and leadership to be able to contribute our quota and not to sit on the fence and expect help from government.

Yes, indeed here we are today. Because our lecturers are only academics, they only teach and have no leadership skills. It takes a leader to mobilize resources and to be able to accomplish a task however difficult it may be. Someone who does not know what leadership is about sits on campus and has the audacity to justify why he is not being innovative.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind and Leadership they say is everything. But clearly, DR. Richard Tia is exhibiting that he is comfortably swimming in his leadership crisis with no empires in his mind. I also no bore!

Adieu!

Kelvin Yeboah
Entrepreneur
Atiwa District, Eastern Region