11 Mar 2015

Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Unity Dow, says the Ghanaian minister of education’s visit to Botswana was meant to recognise and confirm the long standing relationship between the two countries.

She said this when welcoming the Ghana minister of education, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman during the tour of University of Botswana Faculty of Medicine and Teaching Hospital on March 10.

Dr Dow said she discussed with her counterpart potential areas of collaboration and that they might at the end of the visit have Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed. “We have been touring facilities and sharing to see where there are possibilities to send students for exchange programmes,” she said.

Dr Dow said she also discussed with the minister, issues pertaining to challenges in the education system and some reforms to create multiple paths for students.

She said they both agreed that universities were successful when they produced malleable graduates who could go in the work place and re-make themselves as education did not teach everything but, imparted skills for people to transform themselves.

For her part, Ghanaian minister, Prof. Opoku-Agyeman said there was a new medical school in her country and that during the tour, she saw similar initiatives.

“I am very impressed by what I have seen and I can guess the amount of money gone, the efforts, planning, agreements and disagreements that you went through, but all that matters and what we are interested in is the kind of a doctor that walks out of all these efforts,” she said.

She said her country and Botswana have an old relationship and that Botswana used to send for training, medical doctors to Ghana. She said she took seriously exchange programmes for students of faculty of research, as well as learning other people’s cultures.

“I look forward to ways in which we can foster collaborations between research facilities and other benefits,” she said. The Ghanaian minister of education is accompanying the visiting Ghana president, Mr John Dramani Mahama on a three-day state visit to Botswana, which ends on March 11. ENDS