Our editorial focus on the nexus between technology and development in this week’s issue was deliberate. Apart from reminding (not necessarily informing but reminding, given the fact that information of this nature is, these days, readily available through the electronic media) our readers, including our policy-makers of the grim reality that except our overall education system begins to favour, much more generously, a science and technology bent, we are, as a developing country, bound to fall further and further behind, we also seek to make a direct appeal to the private sector to pick up the pace, so to speak, insofar as technology-related advocacy is concerned. Frankly, we do not believe that enough is being done by the private sector in this area.
What we envisage is that at the levels of both the public and private sectors, the emergence of what one might call the ‘oil and gas agenda’ would have created a greater awareness of the need to raise our science and technology ‘game’ as far as public as well as sector-specific education is concerned, even though evidence that this is underway is not particularly apparent at this time.
