Let's Make New Year School Impactful

Professionals from all fields of endeavours have converged on the University of Ghana, Legon to participate in this year's Annual New Year School and Conference to discuss relevant national issues and make recommendations for consideration by policy makers.

This year's NYS is the 70th edition of the programme which has always been organised by the Institute of Adult Education, now renamed the Continuing and Distance Education of the College of Education, University of Ghana.

The UG deserves tonnes of commendation for continually creating the platform for professionals and other officials from both the public and private sector outside the confines of the university, to deliberate on relevant national topics, share their perspectives on such issues and make recommendation to the government on the way forward.

The theme for this year's school is "Building Strong Institutions for Democratic Consolidation in Ghana" and for the next five days experts will dissect the theme and sub themes that include effective legislative oversight for countervailing authorities , judicial independence and democratic consolidation, strengthening anti-corruption state institutions, investigative journalism and corruption and sustainable development.

Indeed, the topics chosen for this year's school fall in line with the effort by the government to build a strong country with strong institutions to be able to compete on the world stage.

Corruption is a big challenge in the country resulting in taxpayers' money going down the drain. Unscrupulous government officials take advantage of the lapses in the system to misappropriate state resources, as contained in the annual Auditor-General's report.

The Ghanaian Times supports the view that there is the need to build stronger institutions, especially regulatory institutions to enforce the relevant laws and regulations to guide our lives in the manner that would ensure sustainable development.

Although the NYS has built a huge body of scientific knowledge on an array of significant national issues to improve our circumstance as a country, a section of the public holds the view that the school has become a talk shop with no relevance.

Their reason is the seemingly low uptake of some of the recommendations and suggestions. In the view of that school of thought, some policy recommendations of the NYS, as usual, are locked up on the shelves of officialdom.

We believe that the work of the NYS is very relevant and the yearly discussions must go on. What must be done, however, is that, the outcomes of the NYA should be put to use. Allowing them to gather dust on shelves amount to a complete waste of time and resources.

Our endorsement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) challenges us as a country to build a strong and vibrant economy to reflect on the wellbeing of the people so that "we leave no one behind."

Poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy are still with us; lots of people are still living on the fringes of society and there is urgent need to build all inclusive society.

We believe that building strong institutions for democratic consolidation in Ghana would lead to sustainable development and make democracy meaningful to the ordinary people who would be better placed to defend democratic governance.

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