Irene Nsiah-Akoto

The status of women physicists in academia and industry has improved over the last decade in Ghana but not without challenges. It will take some time before women are well represented, especially at the professorial level. Organizations such as the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) and the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) are striving hard to minimize professional gaps between women and men. The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, through its efforts to encourage women in physics and science in general has elected its second woman in 58 years as president, and GAEC is also encouraging and appointing women to managerial positions.

Ghana is said to be the first independent sub-Saharan African country outside South Africa to promote science education and the application of science in industrial and social development. It has long been recognized that many schools' science curricula extend the extracurricular activities of boys more than those of girls. In order to bridge this gap, efforts have been made to give girls extra assistance in the learning of science by exposing them to science activities through specific camps, road shows, exhibitions, and so on. The best known of such efforts is the Science, Technology, and Mathematics Education (STME) camps and clinics for girls, which started in Ghana 23 years ago. Since our attendance at the Third International Conference on Women in Physics in Seoul, Korea, a lot has been achieved to further improve female science education, and this credit goes to STME. The first female nuclear engineer from Ghana graduated from the University of Ghana in March 2010.