The Korea International Co-operation Agency (KOICA)’s annual Theses Knowledge sharing forum for its scholarship beneficiaries was held on Tuesday with virtual presentations by four of KOICA’s 2019 scholars.
The forum which falls under KOICA’s Capacity Improvement and Advancement for Tomorrow (CIAT) programme was aimed at sharing the research theses of its scholars with the general public, work supervisors, management and colleagues against the backdrop that knowledge sharing was a key component in developing Ghana.
The four KOICA fellows included three men and a female. They were Michael Osei Tutu, a tutor with the Ghana Education Service (GES) who delivered on the topic “ The role of Education Policy of Ghana in achieving a Knowledge-based Economy: Lessons from South Korea and Robert Selassie Setorwofia , an Assistant Agricultural Officer at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture whose thesis analysed Agricultural trade flow among ECOWAS member states.
Others were Matilda Owusua Ndaa, an Assistant Geologist, Hydrological Services Department –Ministry of Works and Housing whose topic tackled performance evaluation of river basin boards in Ghana to implement Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) – the application of composite Indexes and Kayang David Mwinfang , a forest range manager with the Forestry Commission whose work was based on the assessment of CO2 sequential potential of Afforestation Projects under the Forest Investment Programme (FTB) in Ghana.
Deputy Country Director of KOICA Ghana, Ms Jeongyi Choi, said these fora was important as good researches were never complete without dissemination urging the public to visit KOICA Ghana Office on social platforms Facebook and Youtube to watch the presentations.
She was hopeful that through the presentations, the research recommendations suggested would be implemented or adapted to impact their sectors.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that all these brilliant researches do not rust in repositories. We need to bring them to life and they will require strong ownership, engagement and commitment from all of us – including work supervisors, alumni members, media and the public,” he said.
She encouraged Ghanaians, especially government workers to take advantage of KOICA’s scholarship programme funded by the Government of Korea if they harboured a vision of being leaders and decision-makers of the country in the future.
She applauded Ghanaians saying that “their capacity, enthusiasm, drive, competitive spirit and patriotism” made them first choice participants for the programme.
KOICA’s scholarship programme which consists of a master’s degree programme, multi-country programme and a cross-country programme has accounted for 1,200 fellows since its inception in 2010.
For the 2021 programme, 27 participants would be studying in 15 universities across South Korea for 18 months.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
