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General News of Friday, 7 October 2011

Source: GNA

TIGO supports SHS mathematics and science workshop

Accra, Oct. 7, GNA - Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of Tigo mobile network, has extended support to the first ever Robotics inspired Science Education workshop for Senior High School (SHS) students across the country= .. The workshop to be held in Accra, Takoradi and Tamale begun on October 3rd and will end on October 11th this year.

The workshop focuses on real-life science and mathematics problem-solving by making participants to work with computers and robot construction kits. A statement issued and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Friday said the workshop is being facilitated by Dr. Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, a senior robotics engineer from the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"This programme is aimed at inspiring and energizing Ghanaian SHS students to pursue education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics for national development." It said participants at the event would have hands-on experience in using Lego Mind storms NXT 2.0 construction kits to build robots and programme them to perform various tasks.

The workshops is also equipping participants to connect science theory with practice, and the equipment used during the workshops will stay at the schools to form the basic building blocks for the SHS robotics science clubs. "As the teams' skills develop=85, they will work to accomplish tas= ks in the most efficient manner, or collaborate with other teams to jointly accomplish a task, much like scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and programmers work to solve problems and accomplish missions in the real world," it added.

The statement noted that forty-one SHSs have agreed to participate in this year's programme with each school presenting a robotics science club= of about 10 students and two teachers to work as a team during the workshops. It said after the workshops, the robotics science clubs in the schools would continue with robotics science studies in their schools, adding that the event would also provide each participating school club with a robotics science guidebook and curriculum.

The Tamale workshop ended at the Tamale Secondary School with 13 SHSs from the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions participating. Meanwhile Accra will host Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta regions. For the Takoradi session Ghana Secondary Technical School will host schools from the Western, Central and Ashanti regions from October 10-11. It said as part of the company's corporate social responsibility, "Millicom Ghana Limited believes in supporting the communities in which i= t operates and improving the quality of the lives of people in those communities=85" The statement noted that the company recently equipped some SHS students with entrepreneurship skills through the Young Entrepreneurs Afric= a Mentorship programme, with the aim of making them to take on an entrepreneurship mindset at an early age while providing others with skills training through the Africa Ball Community Development basketball project i= n Nima.