Reverend Father Clement Aepengnuo, a Priest at the Catholic Diocese of Damango in the Savannah Region has called for the need for technocrats to be allowed to take over the country’s educational system devoid of politics.
“The educational system is messed up and we are going to pay for it dearly. Take politics out of Ghana’s educational system and leave it with the technocrats and they will bring the system back on track,” he said.
The Priest, who is also the Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies in Damango, said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the side-line of the annual Katholischer Akademischer Ausländer-Dienst (KAAD) Association of Scholars of West Africa (KASWA) conference.
The three-day conference, on the theme; “Building a healthy and peaceful society amidst a pandemic”, was held in Na
`qrongo in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region.
The KASWA is for postgraduate students and scientists from developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Near and Middle East, as well as Southern-Eastern Europe under the German Catholic Church.
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The Reverend Father said; “It is politics that has messed up the system. Immediately people get into power, they are looking for opportunities to spend. I am in Damango, a ‘gari’ producing area. The schools are being supplied with ‘gari’ from Accra, tell me how that makes sense.”
He said anybody who expresses concerns about happenings in the country, was considered opposition, “So civil servants in government positions cannot talk. People turn around and say but what is the Church doing.
Dr Vincent Kyere, the President of the KASWA, who also spoke to the GNA, explained that the English language version of KAAD was the Catholic Academic Exchange Service, and said brilliant and needy students were identified and supported to pursue graduate studies.
He said the support was in two forms for those in Germany and those out of Germany.
“They give stipends to the student and help even in payment of fees. Some do their studies in Ghana and others also go to Germany for their studies.”
Explaining the process of application which was strictly for Catholics in Ghana, Dr Kyere said people who met the criteria would have to apply and attend an interview at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
He said names of qualified applicants from the interview would be forwarded to Germany for the final selection of qualified applicants for the scholarship.
