Kumasi Aug 6, GNA - A two-week international conference on Art Education has opened at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.

It is being organized by the Department of Art Education, KNUST, in collaboration with the African Community of Arts Educators (AfriCOAE) in the US and attended by 28 participants from China, Australia, Austria, Hungary, Uganda, Nigeria, Canada, USA, Cameroon, UK and Ghana. The programme, which has the theme "The Kumasi Symposium: Tapping Local Resources for Sustenance Education through Art", is expected to end in August 14 and is a follow-up to a similar one that took place at Accra in 2008 dubbed "AfriCOAE" and had the theme "Project Earth to Art".

Opening the conference Prof Williams Ellis, Pro-Vice Chancellor of KNUST, said the current state of affairs in the world called for sharing of ideas and knowledge towards a holistic education development to help promote productivity. The Pro-Vice Chancellor commended the College of Art and Social Sciences (CASS) for being among the best colleges at KNUST. Prof Dr Dr Daniel Buor, Provost of CASS, said the theme for the conference was appropriate since tapping local resources to support art education would save the nation foreign exchange. Nana Afia Amponsa Opoku Afriyie, Head of the Department of General Art Studies, said there was inadequate infrastructure and personnel to support and enhance the teaching and learning of art at all levels.