The second Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, was not an engineer or a scientist, he was a distinguished medical practitioner. Dr Emanuel Evans-Anfom, who served from 1967 to 1973, was appointed by the navy regime that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah on 24 February 1966, to exchange Nkrumah’s buddy, Dr R P Baffour. The new Vice-Chancellor was not properly obtained in a college of science and know-how that had no medical faculty. The basic view amongst the educational employees was that the Vice-Chancellor ought to relate to one of many current colleges of the college. Nevertheless, it was typically agreed on the finish of his time period of service that Dr Evans-Anfom had been a profitable chief, not least as a result of he took the choice to ascertain the Technology Consultancy Centre (TCC) earlier than he had any assurance from the federal government or worldwide growth companies that funding can be offered.
Dr Evans-Anfom hailed from a outstanding Accra household of combined blood, as signified by the Welsh title Evans. A suave light-skinned, softly spoken gentleman with a high-class English accent, Dr Evans-Anfom matched many individuals’s notion of a profitable Harley Street specialist. It might have been his look and method that extended his unpopularity, however there was little question that Dr Evans-Anfom had greater than the same old issue chairing the Academic Board and successful its help for his varied initiatives. In truth his rule might need been nearly unattainable had it not been for the help of a powerful minority of expatriate members.
Dr Evans-Anfom believed strongly {that a} college mustn’t solely educate and analysis; it also needs to have a ‘third position’ in service to the group. He needed KNUST to be not an Ivory Tower however a dynamic power in nationwide financial growth. Soon after taking workplace he requested Dr E F Schumacher’s Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) to ship a mission to Kumasi to advise on the college’s ‘third position.’ The mission of Sir John Palmer and Mr George McRobbie occurred, and a plan was drawn up for a Technology Consultancy Centre. Then in 1971, Professor Harold Dickinson of Edinburgh University spent six months at KNUST speaking to native businessmen and entrepreneurs to achieve group help for the initiative.
Having a medical man answerable for KNUST exacerbated an extended held grievance in Ghanaian educational circles. Professors and lecturers on the Medical School of the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, have been paid a wage complement to compensate for lack of alternative to undertake consultancy work. Engineers at KNUST felt that they too ought to both be paid the complement or allowed to do paid consultancy for outdoor companies. The dispute led to a disaster in 1970 with the resignation of 13 engineering lecturers.
With assistance from the Association of Commonwealth Universities, London, quick and long-term replacements have been recruited from the UK and elsewhere, arriving in Kumasi early in 1971. Now the college had a corps of prepared younger overseas teachers anxious to interact within the new discipline of intermediate (applicable) know-how, in addition to a band of Ghanaian engineers equally anxious to achieve paid outdoors consultancy contracts. The time appeared proper to go forward with the TCC, which could fulfil each wants, however no funds have been accessible for this goal. It was then that Dr Evans-Anfom determined to launch funds from the college’s slender reserves and requested the primary director to open the TCC workplace on 11 January 1972.
Two days later, the democratically elected authorities of Prime Minister Kofi Busia was overthrown by the navy coup that introduced Colonel I Ok Acheampong to energy. Changes on the prime have been anticipated to herald adjustments decrease down in nationwide establishments and Dr Evans-Anfom will need to have felt that his days as Vice-Chancellor have been numbered. He was capable of maintain on for over a yr, nonetheless, and someday after his departure in 1973 he reappeared as the federal government’s Commissioner for Education. It was on this capability that he visited KNUST in his ministerial Range Rover luxurious 4×4 saloon automotive, and referred to as on the TCC to evaluation progress. It was with some pleasure that he referred to himself as ‘The Father of the Technology Consultancy Centre.’
