Former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, says science and technology are the heartbeats of economic growth and that university education should be tailored to solve problems and not a degree-awarding institution.

Frimpong-Boateng says there is a need to channel resources to universities to help boost the digitalization drive.

Speaking to Metro TV’s Dr. Randy Abbey on Good Morning Ghana on Thursday morning, he was emphatic that successive governments have not placed a premium on science and technology.

“University is not there to teach students to get degrees but conduct research to solve the problems that the nation is facing. We need to resource the universities properly and give them the proper orientation

“If you talk about digitalization without the universities how can you do that? You have to throw the problem at them, give them the resources, and say ‘Look, we want to move our analog system in our country so this is it. Give us the plan and product.’ This is what I’m saying we are not taking this thing seriously,”

Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng also bemoaned the lack of investment in human capital.

“We have to invest in human beings so that those human beings will be able to build the factories we need in the [next] 5-10 years’ time,”

“I am not saying we should not do projects. But all our efforts should not be in projects because if you do the projects, it makes you more and more dependent on foreign technology, expertise, and capital,” he said.

“We borrow money to go and build roads. We can build a factory in every village but that will not give Ghana the capacity to build its own factories in [the] future,” he noted.