The Board Chairman of CSIR College of Science and Technology (CCST), Prof. Jophus Anamuah-Mensah has emphasized the need for a change in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics courses in the tertiary and secondary levels to suit the country’s industrial needs.

He therefore believes exposing students at the pre-tertiary level to practical courses is vital for achieving this goal.

“If Ghana is to leverage on science, technology and innovation to industrialize, then we need to redesign STEM courses at the tertiary level to produce goods and services to improve the quality of life of our people.

“The design of our curricula must therefore shift from analysis to creation or production. Even at the pre- tertiary level, especially the secondary level, students must be pre-disposed to courses that allow students to engage in practical activities that encourage production of goods and services,” he said.

The College President, Prof. Mark Appiah called on the government and private institutions to help the College with funding their research works.

“The idea of the college is to be able to conduct research and use research resource for development.

“The students we admit should be able to engage in research activities and research also goes with funding and these days it is not easy to get international funding.

“So, we think the government and private sector can be supporting the University in raising students who will be able to conduct research that feeds into the problems we have,” he said.

He said this at the 3^rd graduation ceremony of CSIR College of Science and Technology.

CCST is an institution birthed out of research and development experiences of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

The College operates within the research facilities of the thirteen institutes of the CSIR with accreditation from the University of Cape Coast.

The school offers Masters degree programmes in Animal resource development, Agro-processsing technology and Food biosciences, Fish science and Aquaculture.

Others are Natural Resource Management, Plant Resource Development and Soil Resource Management.

The Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr. Kwaku Afriyie said plans are far advanced on research promotion and assured that they will soon yield results.

In a speech read on his behalf, Dr. Afriyie urged the College to continue the hard work.

“The discussions on supporting and enhancing research, research commercialization, publications, patents, technology transfer, ownership, reaching markets, industry-science -academia collaboration and the sense of excellence in science continues to take centre stage.

“The good news is that our institutions have taken bold steps to set-up efforts in these areas and I am challenging the CSIR and CCST to do more,” he said.

38 students graduated from the College this year.