Kumasi, Nov. 8, GNA - Dr Nicholas Westcott, British High Commissioner to Ghana, on Monday said, the British Council has resolved to promote effective partnerships between schools in Ghana and Britain, for the mutual benefits of the two countries. He said since education was a fundamental requirement for economic growth and social transformation, he found it refreshing, the growing enthusiasm of most Ghanaian schools to get affiliated to schools in Britain.

Through the Council's "connecting classrooms partnership programme" there are now about 142 schools in the Ashanti Region alone, which had entered into relationships with their European counterparts. Dr Westcott, delivering a paper on: "The new British approach to Africa" at a public lecture in Kumasi, organized by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), challenged Ghanaian education institutions to demonstrate more commitment to enhance their affiliation with the schools.

He said that would not abandon their support for the "Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Programme", designed to build linkages between research at the universities and private sector companies. Dr Westcott also touched on drugs and crime, and said, it was worrying that these social evils were gaining root in West Africa and urged the respective Governments to work hard to tackle the menace, to help sustain the economic and political gains made. He said given the threat posed by the drug trade to emerging economies, Britain was working with Ghana to build the capacity of the police, Narcotics Control Board and the Criminal Justice System, to deal with the menace.

The Immigration Services was also being equipped to help it manage migratory flows into the country in the wake of the oil drilling. Dr Westcott re-affirmed his country's determination to deepen its relationship with Ghana in the fight against climate change, corruption and poverty reduction, to achieve the millennium development goals. Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice Chancellor of the KNUST, said the University would introduce innovative programmes to address societal needs.