While I am very confident that Ghana has one of the best educational systems that produces very resilient and well cut out students, I dread the current structure of the educational system may be churning out many technocrats and few or no intellectuals, which could be worrying at this stage in the development of the nation. We need intellectuals to decipher the social, economic and political categorizations of the citizenry, as well as a systematized scientific research into such stratifications and the socio-economic, health and other problems associatedwith them. I will therefore make a case for the need to increase investment in intellectual life or research in general, rather than the more focus on technocracy.A technocrat is trained to garner technical expertise and apply that expertise to solve societalproblems. For instance, a medical doctor is a technocrat, because they are taught skills that willbe used to directly cure human diseases. The teacher, likewise, is trained to impart knowledge to their students, in the quest to quell ignorance. There is no doubt that these are professions that are fundamental to societal well-being and growth, and hence deserve the investment. At
some point in building a nation, the primary focus will be in developing technocrats. At the dawn of Ghana’s independence for example, the nation needed many engineers to construct roads, build bridges and other infrastructures. But do we need to be focusing on building infrastructures after more than 60 years of nation building?I do not believe that we need to keep investing in technocracy, at the detriment of intellectuallife. Intellectualism involves the abstraction of new meaning into life. This new meaning comesabout through critical and rational examination of existing forms of knowledge, historicity of the concepts and ideas that constitute the body of knowledge, and existential human life (including emotional, economic or political experiences). Through such explorations, intellectuals propose models for an improved way of living. Also, they can invent solutions to current problems, which are mostly implemented by technocrats (indicating the complementarity of technocracyand intellectualism). There is the need for a balanced investment in both, at the minimum.Intellectuals operate through a systematized scientific ecosystem, where canons are furtherpurified, and the first principles and foundations of current knowledge or life itself are subjected to new analysis, based, mostly on new evidence or scientific methods. In such a system also, new intellectualsare curated to continue the subordination of existence to emerging forms of analysis and critique, thereby producing new concepts and ideas that could govern current and future forms of living. This cyclical, progressive and somehow cumulative nature of intellectualism enormously contribute to the advancement of society.An educational system built around technocracy gives no room for intellectualism, and such asystem creates ‘yes-men’ technocrats who are either not motivated, or even atomized tochallenge the status quo. Right from high school, students are conditioned to imagine themselves as technocrats. Put differently, technocracy is the only palatable option available to the nation’s brightest minds. Students who represent their schools in the National Science and Maths Quiz (NSMQ), a nation-wide quiz for high school students across Ghana are deemed the brightest high school students in the country. These students always see themselves as pursuing medicine, engineering or some other technocratic career. While others emigrate to other countries to continue their education. A glaring example of the latter is Paul Azunre, one of the famous heroes of NSMQ who led Opoku Ware School, my Alma Mater, to its last NSMQ trophy. Dr. Azunre ultimately obtained his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His Ph.D.thesis on optical systems led to the establishment of Algorine Inc., a leading artificial intelligencecompany based in Texas, US.Ph.D. training is one major way new intellectuals are broughtup because Ph.D. students areexpected to subject the current body of knowledge in their field of study to new analysis andproduce new meanings that will advance their field, and society in general. Due to the highcognitive demand and the intellectual commitment required to pursue a Ph.D., brilliant studentslike those that represented their schools in NSMQ usually fare better in Ph.Ds. However, Ghanacontinues to lose these smart students to technocratic careers or emigration to other countries that
afford them the environment to pursue an intellectual life. Of course, pursuing any field of studyis the choice of the student, but it is imperative for the system to provide well-balanced optionsfor either technocratic or intellectual careers, such that the benefits are appreciably similar onboth ends.Technocracy is pronounced, such that students are presented with choices, but really all that theyare presented with are options between one form of technocracy or the other. To pursue anintellectual life is to sentence yourself to impoverishment, or even become a pariah. Driven bythe demands of neoliberal capitalism, high school students find such technocratic careers moreattractive, and parents encourage or even demand that their wards pursue such careers.To make intellectualism more attractive, there should be a well instituted government agency tofund research, scholarship and intellectual life. Professors and lecturers should be provided withthe needed financial support to procure equipment that enhance their research activities. Thereshould also be a funding system to support postgraduate students. In a word, research should besystematized.It is understandable that foreign aids/loans come with austerity measures that make investment inscientific research almost impossible, but nation development requires the systematization of ourscience and research and that requires investment. This will, in the future, reduce the reliance onexternal or metaphysical forces for solutions to our problems. Therefore, it may be time torethink the reliance on aids that do not benefit or even hamper the progression of our science and research