Cape Coast, Nov.29, GNA – The National Commission on Culture (NCC) has tasked the Media to help shape cultural policies in the country for enhanced national image.
It said the Media has the mandate as the fourth arm of government and a powerful instrument to churn out positive content to help project Ghana’s identity and values.
“The media has been a channel through which the voice of the people are heard. It therefore have a more positive impact on the identity and values of citizens,” it added.
These were said at a day’s workshop organised by the Cape Coast Center for National Culture (CNC) for Metropolitan Municipal and District Cultural Officers (MMDCO) and Directorate Staff.
The training was aimed at equipping them to efficiently implement cultural policies, liase with various stakeholders of the Municipal Assemblies and the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) to effectively undertake cultural policies and programs.
Speaking on ‘Operationalizing Cultural policies’, Mr Fio Richardson Commey, the Director of Planning, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation of the NCC who made the call, entreated media agencies to collaborate and support activities that would promote the Ghanaian culture.
He urged the media to portray good morals and behaviours in promoting the rich Ghanaian culture to the youth for the generation yet unborn to cherish, uphold and appreciate their own rather than adopting foreign lifestyles and cultures.
“We have a lot of foreign content like Indian telenovelas taking over our media space and it is influencing media consumers to develop a taste and an attitude towards our lifestyle and even our mode of dressing which is very worrying ” he cautioned.
The Director, expressed worry about the weak synergy among state agencies working under science, technology and culture in bridging the gap amongst the three components in Ghana’s educational system.
“Even though there is a clear relationship between culture and science yet the collaboration among state agencies of these components is not really working and this is affecting our educational system”, he indicated.
He also stressed the need for the Education Ministry to consult institutions like NCC when developing its curriculum to incorporate culture into science and technology”
He said apart from having a curriculum that gave culture and science an attention, the Nation needed to have a budget for it to invest in cultural activities in schools for better results.
For her part, Mrs Dorcas Salamatu Alhassan, the Acting Regional Director of the CNC, appealed to stakeholders in the Arts and Culture industry to resource the sector to create more avenues for the youth to reduce unemployment in the Country.
She encouraged the Ghanaian populace to embrace made-in-Ghana products and make them a priority to improve productivity and sell the country within and beyond.
Mr Emmanuel Alfred Botchway, a participant said the programme was insightful and educative and hoped to see such training sessions happen more often to broaden their knowledge.
GNA