Akufo-Addo outlines education and economic policies at IEA tomorrow

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Created on Monday, 20 August 2012 00:00

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Akufo-Addo outlines education and economic policies at IEA tomorrow

20 August 2012

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, will have the opportunity to introduce his party's policy framework to Ghanaians on the platform of policy think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, tomorrow, August 21, 2012.   

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Nana Addo was originally scheduled to take his turn at the IEA's Evening Encounter programme on Tuesday, August 7 but the event had to be rescheduled at his request following the sudden demise of President John Evans Atta Mills.

Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to use the platform to outline his education and economic policies, with industrialization at the heart, aimed at transforming the nation’s economy from the raw material stage to a value-addition economy.

It is also likely that the NPP Presidential Candidate will give the cost of his proposed free senior high education and how he intends to fund it.

He will also give an idea of how he intends to tackle the growing unemployment in the country, especially among the youth; how he intends to enhance agricultural productivity through mechanisation; as well as solving the nation’s infrastructural problems.

Nana Akufo-Addo’s economic transformation agenda is to put Ghana onto “a clear path towards a high income economy and Ghanaians into high income earners.”

The NPP Presidential Candidate believes that “We can’t continue travelling the worn path of limited success of being exporters of raw materials.”

Nana Akufo-Addo takes inspiration from Albert Einstein, the great scientist, who did not mince his words in his description of insanity as “the habit of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The NPP leader believes that “Our problems require that we think outside of the box. Our thinking and approach to solving problems must be different from the thinking and approach that brought about the problems in the first place.”

Nana Akufo-Addo wants to see a nation that will be at the forefront of the industrialisation of West Africa.

“We will add value to our bauxite by building an Integrated Aluminium Industry and export manufactured aluminum products as was envisaged by the Kufuor government. We will add value to our iron ore and build a new Iron and Steel Industry. We will add value to our new found gas by developing a strong Petro-Chemical Industry in Ghana, using both private and public equity. Our salt will be part of this new vision. I want to see a West Africa that is working together to create jobs for its people; and providing decent lives for its population and I want to see Ghana being at the driving seat of that regional project,” the NPP leader outlined when he delivered the first Liberty lecture last year.

At the core of Nana Akufo-Addo’s economic transformation agenda is education and skills training.

The Presidential Candidate sees education and skills training as “probably the most important source of empowering and providing opportunities to the youth to help drive Ghana’s development and in the process create jobs.”

He draws inspiration from the fact that “countries that have done well, even without natural resources (for example, Japan) are the countries that have invested in education and skills training. This is not a secret, but it is surprising how long it is taking us to get learn this.”

“A society that aims to transform itself into a modern productive player in the global market must get its educational policies right. I believe in freedom and I am the leader of a party that believes in freedom. Freedom presupposes the citizens' ability to make informed choices. Citizens can only make informed choices if they are empowered with the capacity to make those choices. The one with which an informed choice can be made is education. We believe that education is a right and not a privilege,” Nana Addo acknowledges.

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Source: thestatesmanonline.com