Growing joblessness and graduate unemployment have become a nagging issue to the government and a concern to the national security in Ghana. This has undermined the efficiency of public investment in education in Ghana. Ghana is-therefore losing significant opportunities for improvement in the economic wellbeing of Ghanaians. The growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country have become a blind spot in the country’s education and economic system. This has dented the image and value of education in Ghana. This has also had implications on the development of personality, values, self-confidence and social responsibility of the youth in the country. And yet-for decades- on Ghana’s growth and development path- policy prescriptions hatched in Ghana and high up in the glass towers of New York and Washington had not solved the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country. This had included the work of Nobel Laureate W. Arthur Lewis, a development economist, a product of London School of Economics as the Chief Economic Advisor to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, The First President of Ghana. As a United Nations technical assistance programme to Ghana, his first report was to pave way for industrialisation in Ghana. There had also been not less than 12 (twelve) development plans / frameworks and strategies since Independence in 1957. This has included local and international expert meetings and conferences with youth employment programmes, roadmaps and performance agreement contracts. And yet, the literature posits that as at 2016, graduate unemployment in Ghana had hovered around- for every 12 students that had graduated from Ghana universities only 1 (one) had been absorbed in the labour market or employed (gainful employment). The government of Ghana in 2017 initiated stopgaps’ measures to ameliorate the graduate unemployment problem in the country. The stopgaps had included recruitment of builders’ corps of 100, 000 graduates and 59000 graduate teachers in the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy in Ghana amongst other initiatives in the government established institutions and government flagship programmes, one district, one factory and planting for food and jobs. These initiatives- notwithstanding, the recent Local Government Service Employment programme in 2019, it is understood that the applicants had ranged 60,000-70,000 with only 5000 shortlisted for interview. This again suggests the magnitude of the graduate unemployment problem in Ghana. This will be exacerbated with the growing enrolment in the Free SHS Policy in Ghana (in the 2017/18 and 2018/19 academic year additional enrolment had been 271, 000 students in SHS).  Again, the Ministry of Education recently has put together over 150 experts in academia, industry and entrepreneurs, business owners including Professors from United Kingdom, Germany, South Africa, Rwanda and Nigeria. This is amongst others to develop a roadmap to address the graduate unemployment problem in the country. This notwithstanding- in the lens of the best and valued practices of the West and South and East Asian Countries including China and Indian and further in the lens of 219 Years Economic Evolution of Ghana (1800-2019), what  to date  have not been explored, investigated and understood sufficiently in Ghana to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in Ghana have been putting Ghana on a prosperity paradigm of a new growth model in Ghana –growth with development-technological transformation of Ghanaian economy. This will lead to structural and economic transformation of Ghanaian economy to address the problem of the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in Ghana.

1.1 Empirical basis of the new growth model in Ghana

In 1962, President Park Jung Hee’s “5 year economic plan had positioned South Korean to achieve prosperity paradigm of industrialisation. This plan was evaluated and implemented in China and some Southeast Asian countries. Today, China’s story is the second- biggest economy in the world. The author in the lens of the best and valued practices in the West and South and East Asian countries including China and India and further in the lens of 219 Years Economic Evolution of Ghana (1800-2019) has also conducted an intensive research on Ghana’ s growth and development path to present a blueprint economic policy of Ghana. This new growth model –technological transformation of Ghanaian economy with clear direction or path of education and Ghanaian economy to achieve quality and effective synergy in education and the Ghanaian economy with implications on the other sectors of the Ghanaian economy will put Ghana on a prosperity paradigm.The genesis of the author’s intensive research and critical context and content analysis of Ghana’s growth and development path started with the author’s Master of Finance Degree with the focus of the thesis: ‘The Impact of the Ghana Cedi Exchange Rate on the Economy of Ghana’, 2001 at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom (2001). Following this, the author’s Doctoral Thesis had focused on education and economy as experienced in Ghana at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom (2013) and a synthesis of his doctoral thesis to produce books, scholar and learned papers to unearth this new growth model in Ghana. The books have been (Dynamics of Persistent Underdevelopment: The Case of Ghana, 2017 (Kindle Store: http://wwwamazon.com), The Theory of Change in Ghana, 2017 (http://wwwamazon.com), The Wellbeing of Ghanaians, 2018 (digibookspublishing.com). This has included scholar and learned papers for local and International Conferences. The author has written not less than fifty articles in renowned Ghanaian papers. Recent work include: My position: Education and Ghanaian economy, 2019, My position: Quality education in Ghana, 2019 and My Position: sustainable development goal agenda in Ghana, 2019 and proposals on the new growth model in Ghana, 2019. The author work includes the production of ten (10) working documents on education and Ghanaian economy as experienced in Ghana. On his working manual, ‘Guide to the MTEF for Educational Administrators’, 1999, Grayson Clarke, Bannock Consulting, United Kingdom, a consulting firm DFID contracted to produce most of innovative practices in GES (performance agreement contract documents, disadvantage criteria formula to enhance the development of schools in the deprived districts in Ghana etc.) wrote, ‘From the beginning I have been extremely impressed by Matthew’s ability to absorb complicated issues and help to devise and apply positive solutions. He is a natural self-starter. On his own initiative and in his own time, he wrote a “Guide to the MTEF for Educational Administrators”, which has been printed by GES and given to all district and divisional directors’. Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, former minister of education wrote in July, 2000, :‘I have always cherished such initiative, hard work, and intellectual curiosity and strongly believe that when the success story of the implementation of the MTEF is written, your contribution will be fully acknowledged.  I therefore urge you not to rest on your oars but rather continue to work hard to unearth new areas which may positively change the fortunes of the sector (FB60/261/01).’ Consequently, Matthew as the strategic planner for GES with an additional responsibility as one of the Technical Officers in the office of the Senior Minister, Hon Yaw Osafo-Maafo when he was the Minister of Education and Matthew as the head of monitoring and evaluation unit of ministry of education with additional responsibility to coordinate to develop education policy in Ghana and team leader to develop the simulation model, the mindset of the education policy in Ghana amongst others, the former Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Professor Ato Essuman wrote:‘Matthew, I am very proud of you and appreciate the good work you are doing at the Ministry. We only need about 5 people in the ministry to demonstrate the kind of commitment and ownership you portray and education will be transformed. Good luck and God be with you’ (senioressuman@yahoo.com, September 23, 2010, 2:35 AM) (https://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/nco/launch?. Former Director Administration of the Ministry of Education, J.O. Afrani also wrote, ‘Matthew is a great asset to education in Ghana’.  It is also worthy of note that Professor Mario Novelli noted in his comment on Matthew’s Doctoral Research Thesis that:‘Matthew you now have a really solid critique of the failure of Ghana to develop. I can see now the kernel of a really excellent and critical research project that could be both theoretically and policy relevant and important for the development of Ghana (M.Novelli@sussex.ac.uk). Dynamics of Persistent Underdevelopment: The Case of Ghana, Professor Stephen Adei, Professor of Economics and Leadership, former Rector, GIMPA, Accra, and now Chairman - NDPC (National Development Planning Commission) also wrote in the foreword: ‘Dr. Matthew Karikari-Ababio has written a good book. This book is full of material and insights on Ghana and not only makes serious intellectual contribution to the development discourse but provides invaluable pointers to new thinking, policies and actions that Ghana must engage in to come out of its dependency model onto a pathway of growth, development and prosperity’. This book, therefore, stands the chance of being a reference point for many years (adeistephen@gmail.com). In the lens of the best and valued practices in the West and South and East Asian countries including China and India and further in the lens of 219 years economic evolution of Ghana (1800-2019), the author posits that Ghana has come to a fork in her road to development: a path of growth with development or a path of growth without development. The strategic documents in Ghana are not cast in iron but are living documents. This- notwithstanding- redefining, modifying , re-aligning or changing the strategic documents, budgets, performance targets and indicators to put Ghana on a new growth model-growth with development that will lead to technological transformation of Ghanaian economy to achieve structural and economic transformation of Ghanaian economy to add value to Ghana rich natural resources and the economy, job creation and employment and position of export as the engine of growth of the economy to generate sufficient foreign exchange and revenue to achieve stability of the Ghanaian cedi and pay Ghana debts to improve the quality of life of Ghanaians may be a difficult decision for the government; but it is a necessary and sufficient condition to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country. The empirical question has been when will Ghana re-position itself on a new growth model to get the basics right to address the problem of the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country. The question again has been if not today, then when? Ghana’s growth and development path for decades has been growth without development. This in a linear, deterministic and mechanistic way has manifested itself as a dependent model of development in Ghana to marginalise the country in technology and productivity. This has made it difficult for policy reforms in Ghana to work to address the internal and external exploitative tensions in the country to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country. Thus in theory,humans have the capacity to achieve the highest through education (Smith, 1999). Ghana Seven Year Plan for Development, 1964 defined education, science, technology and innovation in clear terms to address the problems in Ghana. Theoretical and empirical literature also posits that education leads to improved economic performance (more so than the other way round (Earle, 2010). And yet, for decades in Ghana, the rich countries get the rich raw natural primary products from Ghana. They use education, science, technology and innovation and TVET (technical, vocational education and training) to add value to these rich raw natural primary products from Ghana and sell to Ghana at a cost higher than the primary products to position Ghana to be in a deficit, depth of debt and underdevelopment. The empirical question has been that why in Ghana, the country is not able to position the Ghanaian education system to add value to the rich natural resources in Ghana and position export as the engine of growth in Ghana to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country including the myriad of problems in Ghana? This again suggests itself to ask: what has been the root cause of the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in Ghana?

1.2 Little value addition to Ghanaian economy.

Positioning the Ghanaian economy to achieve a new growth model in Ghana- technological transformation of Ghanaian economy- will develop education, science, technology and innovation and TVET- for example to add value to the rich natural resources in the country. For example the bauxite worth of US$50 billion in its raw - state form in Ghana to attain its full potential value of US$ 400 billion. This will include value addition to Ghana cocoa, cashew, gold, diamond, salt, limestone, iron ore, oil, gas and lithium. This will further position export as the engine of growth in Ghana to create more jobs and employment to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country. In this era, Social Darwinsim views the society and the economy as a competitive arena in which the ‘fittest’ would rise to the top and the ‘unfit’ eliminated. This has become a dominant ideology underlying economic agendas in the world. Therefore-in Ghana, the conventional knowledge and understanding have been that the dominant states have wished Ghana’s gold, diamond and bauxite to mention but a few are sent in the raw state – form to the dominant States. The dominant States analyse to take the gold, diamond and aluminum they need from it and to tell Ghana that the raw form worth is about 10, 000 Ghana cedis. Meanwhile, the dominant States had analysed to take their gold, diamond and other minerals needed. Consequently raw manganese which included gold, diamond and other minerals have been supplied to companies in Europe and other dominant states since 1915 to date by rail, and now by heavy trucks. Thus, Ghana has to be marginalised in technology. This has made it difficult for the country to add value to its rich natural resources. Consequently, resources in Ghana have been actively used but used in a way which benefits the dominant States and not Ghana in which the resources are found. Bauxite, an ore and the main source of aluminum was first discovered in Ghana in 1914. Ghana has bauxite reserve that could last for more than a century. This has positioned Ghana as one of the largest exporters of bauxite but in a raw/unrefined form. And yet, the country has no refinery plant and most companies in Ghana export the raw materials. Modern gold production in Ghana started more than 100 years ago. There has also been the problem of Ghanaians developing an ‘assaying plant’ or refinery to add value to the gold produced in Ghana. And yet, the gem of technological innovation in Ghanaians was demonstrated as far back in 1800 when gold smith technology was discovered with the use of alkaline salt derived from the ash of dry maize stalk for technology of smelting and refining of gold in Ghana. This creative knowledge of the Ghanaian communities has not been drawn on by education, science, technology and innovation in Ghana to develop Ghana’s technology and refinery.  It is -therefore worthy of note that In this era of social Darwinism all the countries that have developed new growth models that have led to their technological transformation to achieve structural and economic transformation to enhance the competitiveness of their country and achieve results; the government of those countries first took the initiative to develop the new growth model before the Development Partners (DPs) came in to support them. The Government of Ghana since Independence in 1957 have not realised that no Development Partner will give Ghana funding and support to develop a new growth model that is competitive to add value to Ghana’s rich natural resources and position export as the engine of growth in Ghana to generate sufficient foreign exchange reserves and revenue to achieve stability of Ghana cedi to make Ghana competitive, create more work, employment and improve the quality of life, standard of living and wellbeing of Ghanaians. For example-in South Korea, President Park Jung Hee’s “5 year economic plan’- a journey to industrialisation that began in 1962 provided a clear direction of the two key sectors of South Korean economy: education and the economy that created the kind of synergy that positioned their economy to achieve the kind of quality education that led to technological transformation of their economy. On this growth and development path, South Korea partnered with multinational corporations to put their country on prosperity paradigm of industrialisation. This plan as pointed out earlier and previous literary publications, was evaluated and implemented in China and some Southeast Asian countries. Today, China’s story is the second- biggest economy in the world.  Singapore in 1970-75 through human resource planning and development created a synergy in their education and economy.  For example, the country estimated 450 to 500 engineers, 200 management personnel and 1500 to 2000 technicians to close their technological gap. Following this, the country partnered with multinational corporations (MNC) such as Tata of India, Rollei of Germany and Philips of Holland to infuse new overseas approaches and practices into their local training systems to technologically transform their economy. Therefore, in Ghana, it is important for leadership to note that in infusion of new overseas approaches and practices into local training system in Ghana, a clear distinction has to be drawn on diffusion model that will build indigenous capacity in technology as experienced in South Korea and Singapore; and dependent model of development that will lead to foreign penetration and exploitation as experienced and practiced in Ghana. Therefore- in the lens of the best and valued practices in the West and South and East Asian countries including China and India and further in the lens of 219 Years Economic Evolution of Ghana (1800-2019) suggest that Ghana is yet to present to the Development Partners for a support, a new growth model that presents a clear direction of the two key sectors of the Ghanaian economy: education and the economy with implications on the other sectors of the Ghanaian economy to create the synergy that will link education, industry and the economy. This will position the growth and development path in Ghana to generate an increase in the demand for educated labour in Ghana for education in Ghana to boost the rate of growth and development in the country as experienced in particular in the East Asian countries to create more work and employment for educated labour in Ghana. Expanded enrolment in education in particular the Free SHS Policy will also be translated into economic growth and development. Ghana is yet to achieve this. Professor Kwabena  Frimpong –Boateng, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation (MESTI) accordingly noted at ‘ MESTI/CSIR Scientific and Lifetime Recognition Awards’ that: ‘ the economic transformational agenda in Ghana will be stillborn without education, science, industry and agriculture being in tune with one another’(www.graphic.com.gh   Daily Graphic, Tuesday, May 21, 2019, p.29 ).  This again suggests itself to ask: what is Ghana’s model of development?

2.0 GHANA DEVELOPMENT

it is important to note that within the capitalist modernity, the West have developed the western model of development out of their cultural context of the European Enlightenment project that gave impetus to the industrial revolution in the 15th and peaked in the 18 and 19^th century to put their countries on prosperity paradigm of industrialisation.  Even though the most powerful countries have determined the rules of the game, the East Asian countries with the skills and values acquired through their education have developed out of their cultural context, ‘the need for survival’ the East Asian model to achieve prosperity paradigm of industrialisation to address the industrial hurdles and growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in their country.  Ghana’s development as pointed out in the author’s literary works and publications has suffered from the lack of indigenous, contextual and relevant development model since Independence in 1957. The ‘unifying - survival force’- in Ghana which was developing out of the Ghanaian social, cultural and traditional context to become an independent model of development in Ghana for the unification and development of the country has been destroyed by tribal politics in Ghana, nourished by the leaders in Ghana to achieve their political gains and manifested itself as the winner take all policy in the Ghanaian politics.  This ‘unifying survival force’ provided the communal senses of direction to achieve self-sufficiency and high standard of cleanliness in the communities with can-do mindset and positive attitude of societal change and rich culture of imbibitions of moral values to enhance the technology and productivity in Ghana. The implications of this had been that even though at the Independence era in 1951-1966, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the First President of Ghana provided a clear vision for Ghana. This was a system of education based at its university level would study concrete problems of tropical world to produce scientifically-technical minded Ghanaians for a rapid development of the country. Following Nkrumah’s vision on modernization and industrialisation of Ghana through science technology and innovation many scientific institutions were also established in the 1950s and 60s. And yet, the theoretical and empirical literature posit that although the Seven Year development plan in the early 1960s had emphasized an expansion in education and skilled manpower, these were desired for their own sake and not necessary as significant inputs into the industrialisation process in Ghana (Aryeetey & Kanbur, 2017). The question has been that with the expansion of education and skilled manpower not significant inputs into Ghana’s industrialisation how could the country at its university level produce scientifically-technical minded Ghanaians? The implications of this was that there was mass unemployment among the school leavers in Ghana and the government had to institute stopgaps like workers brigade to address unemployment problem in the country (Foster, 1965). In the post-independence era (1967-2019), this problem of weak linkage in education and industry resulting in growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country has remained unaddressed issue, elusive and mirage. Apart from the constraints in partnership and internship programmes in the country, the problem has also been the ability and capacity of the country to forecast labour requirements in the different sectors of the economy. For example, human resource planning and development policy to determine the skills and human resource requirements necessary to achieve middle-income country and to put the country on prosperity paradigm of industrialisation have been played down in Ghana. This has made it difficult to link the content of education to the labour market and to align the manpower output from the education sector to Ghana’s development needs to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country. In this equation, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I, 2003-2005) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II, 2006-2009) and the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda, I & II (GSGDA, 2010-2013 & 2014-2016) had been developed, cost-estimated and implemented without human resource planning and development data to generate the needed labour statistics to create a synergy of the two key sectors of the Ghanaian economy: education and the economy which will have implications on other sectors of the economy. Further, the vision of education in Ghana as posited in the current education policy in Ghana, ESP (2018-2030) has been relevant quality education in Ghana to link education, industry and the economy to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country. And yet, the ESP (Education Strategic Plan) for decades and to date have been developed, costed and implemented without the human resource planning and development policy to fine-tune the education system in Ghana to redraw the map of learning in Ghana to link education, government industrialisation process and flagship programmes such as one district, one factory.  The ESP, 2018-2030 was developed in 2016 and revised in 2017. Consequently, a senior lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology noted ‘I was a member of the Team that planned and developed the mechanical engineering syllabus and training for mechanical engineering department of KNUST. We could not get any input from our political leaders of the direction and the productive sectors of the economy to determine the number of engineers, scientists, technologists to be trained (Karikari-Ababio, 2013, p. 123). The lecturer again noted ‘sometimes we ask questions what we were training the students for and we could not answer those questions. The university expected the government and the politicians to provide answers while the government and the politicians expected the universities to provide answers’ (Karikari-Ababio, 2013, p.124). This has positioned education in Ghana in general and the Ministry of Education in particular to produce unemployable graduates and most graduates produced do not get gainful employment.

2.1 Leadership problem in Ghana.

The literature again posits that with the 1973 oil crisis, many countries had spiraling debts and were left with little choice but to accept the World Bank Structural Adjustment programmes (SAPs). While South Korea with its own unique, contextual and relevant independent model implemented the SAPs; but succeeded in technologically transforming its economy to put their country on prosperity paradigm of industrialisation, Ghana with the lack of an indigenous, contextual and relevant development model that in a linear, deterministic and mechanistic way had strictly manifested itself as dependent model of development in Ghana, implemented the SAPs to marginalise the country in technology and productivity for the country to experience the “Lost Decade”. This had destroyed the industrial base of the country with its growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the 80s and 90s. As pointed out by the author in the previous publications, and yet, the overall logic of the structural adjustment programme that made Ghana to experience the “Lost Decade” in the 80s and 90s has remained unchanged in the dominant development theories, discourses, policies and practices in Ghana to date to further marginalise the country in technology and productivity. This growth and development path has marginalised the development of higher education in Ghana to make it difficult for the improved pedagogical practices at the higher education in Ghana to address the growing graduate joblessness in the country. The growth and development path of Ghana for decades has also made it difficult for the universities to accommodate a third vision of enterprise development on top of their primary role of education and intellectual discovery.  This has further exacerbate the problem of the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country.

2.2 Dept of underdevelopment in Ghana

The implications of this has been that with all the investment in education and the skills and values acquired through education in Ghana, it is difficult to tell a time in Ghana history since Independence in 1957 when the country has experienced a boom to pay its debts. At the time of Independence, Ghana had about 250 million pounds reserve. Her per capita income identified her as the middle income country comparable to South Korea. At the time, the government of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the First President to introduce Ghana to IMF (International Monetary Fund) was overthrown; Ghana’s per capita income was below its value at the time of Independence. The net external reserves had deteriorated from a surplus of US$269 million to a deficit of US$391million. In 2001 Ghana was one of the heavily indebted poor countries. In 2008, the growing debt was 22% of GDP and at the end of 2014 the total debt stock (domestic plus external) was about 70.15% of GDP. This had passed the sustainability threshold of 60% of GDP. This has had implications on the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country.

And yet, South Korea had also experienced ‘liquidity crisis in the 1997’. The crisis also created a serious unemployment problem in the country.  The most powerful countries had determined the rules of the game. With the skills and values acquired through education, South Korea could develop its own indigenous, contextual and relevant development model to link education, industry and their economy to put their graduates to productive use for the diffusion of their skills, competency and values. This has put the country on a prosperity paradigm of technological transformation of their economy. In 1998, the Government of South Korea worked with International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fully implement comprehensive reforms measures. The nation’s foreign exchange reserves increased from US$20.4 billion as at the end of 1997 to US$201.2 billion as at the end of 2008. The country was able to repay all the US$13.5 billion rescue loans from IMF. The country has been technologically, structurally and economically transformed to put South Korea on a prosperity paradigm of successful industrialisation. Ghana has had not less than 16 programmes with IMF. Ghana is yet to be technologically transformed to achieve structural and economic transformation to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country.  What are we to make out of this as Ghanaians?

2.3 Ghana an Open economy

Again, it suggests itself to ask as to why the advanced capitalist nations with strong central banks and other institutions that guaranteed them with element of stability and with efficient capital markets to support small businesses and industries have not tagged themselves as open economies. Ghana with small capital market that is underdeveloped and with limited domestic resource mobilisation to support small businesses and industries (Sam, 2017) has rather tagged itself as an open economy. This has been interpreted to mean that Ghana can develop on the basis of free trade. This has destroyed the industrial base leading to growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country.  And yet, in the best and valued practices, ‘industrial policies have been adapted for example in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore which flouted neo-classical economic wisdom about letting market determine investment decisions’. ‘These have been substantially at variance with free trade policy’ (Green et al., 2007, p.32). In America infant industries have been nurtured through overt subsidies and protective tariffs, an essential part of America foreign policy (p.31). Many of the creative innovators in the American computer industry including those who built successful companies in what is now known as Silicon Valley, California, started and nurtured out as ‘tinkerers’  working on hand-assembled machines in their garages’ (Peterson, 1984, p.75). In South Korea, the market has been complemented with state interventions such as promotional policy, shield policy, hidden subsidies and selective intervention policies to build strong industrial base. Moreover, ‘there is substantial body of evidence from the East Asian experience that protection and more active government promotion policies have historically been associated with good economic performance’  (for example, Posco the Korean integrated steel Firm) (Wade, 2008). The World Bank in the early 1970s advised the Korean government on the grounds that Korea had no comparative advantage in steel (Wade, 2008). By 1987 the World Bank described Posco as ‘arguably the world’s most efficient producer of steel’ (Wade, 2004a, 319 cited in Wade, 2008, p.19). The question also arises as to why there was a prohibitive tariffs on cotton goods imported into Britain from India and the ban on the wearing of garments made out of India fabrics (calico) in 1701 and 1721? The understanding was that ‘it was not until in 1774 when Britain had a vibrant British cotton industry that the wearing of cotton cloth was made legal in Britain (Robinson, 2009, p.2). In the 1930s when the British realised they could no longer compete with the efficient American industrialists in an open market, the British created their own bloc to shut out America goods (Walter, 2002, p.12). The empirical question-therefore- has been how can Ghana alone develop on the basis of free trade? It appears in Ghana at some point in policy formulation and implementation, free trade might have been confused with open economy and further confused with free market economy. This again suggests that on policy formulation, there might have been the need for further clarification on liberal economy and capitalist modernity concept. America and South Korea- for example are free-market economy and liberal economy but not an open economy respectively that will develop on the basis of free trade. The implications of this has been harmful malpractices through external leakages, unfair competition, pirated goods and dumping of unwanted finished goods in Ghana. This has destroyed the industrial base of the country to marginalise the country in productivity. In this equation, the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation has developed a Science and Technology Framework to bridge the technology gap between Ghana and the rest of the world. This cannot be achieved without developing the critical mass of scientists, engineers, technologists, innovators and other creative geniuses in other disciplines. This will also demand a strong industrial base to develop to achieve the kind of quality education that will provide not only cognitive but manipulative, tacit and context-dependent knowledge-what will work and not work  in Ghana with imbibitions of moral values to put the students and graduates to productive use for the diffusion and utilization of their skills, competencies, abilities and values to develop Ghana’s technology to technologically transform the Ghanaian economy. Building strong industrial base in Ghana to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment in the country also cannot be achieved without the government of Ghana committing itself to review the government of Ghana economic policy and International commitments in Ghana that have perpetuated a dependent model of development to destroy the industrial base of the country. Therefore-the solvency in the public sector in Ghana-for example- the MDAs (Ministries, Departments and Agencies) in a linear, deterministic and mechanistic way strictly pursuing their mandates without a positive and productive partnership relationship to enhance the efficacy and predictive power of the public sector as an entity in Ghana in collaboration with the private sector to address the problems in the country have also contributed to the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country.

3.0 THE NEW GROWTH MODEL IN GHANA

Therefore- on a nationalistic perspective and this in the lens of the best and valued practices of the West and South and East Asian countries including China and India and further in the lens of 219 years economic evolution of Ghana (1800-2019), the capacity of leadership in Ghana, established institutions, students, parliamentarians, civil society and political parties in collaboration with the development partners in Ghana will be built to have an in-depth insight and understanding of the dominant development theories, discourses, policies and practices to put Ghana on a new growth model-growth with development-technological transformation of Ghanaian  economy as a blueprint economic policy in Ghana. This will be a paradigm shift of the Ghanaian economy to develop and implement blueprint development plan/framework, education strategic plan and other strategic documents in the country to drive the development agenda of the country and Ghana industrialisation  to address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country. This will position Ghana to achieve a paradigm shift of an import-driven economy to an export-driven economy to achieve stability of the Ghana cedi. This will also re-position the Free SHS Policy in Ghana to produce the best scientists, engineers, technologists, innovators and other creative geniuses. This will produce context dependent knowledge in Ghana-what will work and will not work in Ghana- to produce Ghana’s technology. This will give Ghana the best engineering techniques in infrastructure development, housing, waste management and development of refineries to add value to the raw rich natural resources in the country. The industries in Ghana will use the technology developed to diversify, make new, better, cheaper and quality products to export the products the best the world could offer. The new growth model will also take on board Ghana’s industrial estates (Suame Magazine in Kumasi, Odorno, Kokompe and Kantanka limited) into the national education system to transform them into technology zones to enhance the development of science, technology and innovation and TVET covering all technical institutes in the country including the technical universities. This will position the industrial estates in Ghana to produce farm equipments, machines to support the government flagship programmes such as  food for plant and job creation, construction of warehouses to address the problem of post-harvest loses, one district, one dam amongst others and also produce goods and services for export. This new growth model will also position TVET  to kill the myth that it is an academic ‘dead-end’ and backwater in Ghana to produce a new stream of skilled workers with in-depth understanding of our cultural background and imbibed with moral values and aptitude, competency and skills that will make a ‘big push’ into Ghana’s industrialisation and flagship programmes. The new growth model positioning the Ghanaian economy to add value to the rich natural resources in the country will enhance community mining in Ghana. Industries in Ghana positioned to export products the best the world could offer will also enhance Ghana’s participation in the African Continental Free Trade.  This will further address the growing joblessness and graduate unemployment problem in the country.

Dr. Matthew Karikari-Ababio is a prolific writer, critical social scientist, researcher and development theorist (m_karikari_ababio@yahoo.com