‘Aggressive promotion of ICT education imperative’

Mr. Joseph Kwabena Onyinah, Ashanti Regional Education Director, has called for a more aggressive promotion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) education in schools.

This is necessary to assure the nation’s youth that they are not left behind by globalization, he explained.

He was speaking at a seminar organized for heads of Senior High Schools (SHS), ICT coordinators and teachers in the region at the GNAT Hall in Kumasi of the Ashanti Region.

The seminar aimed at introducing participants to “Computer Learning and Support Sustainable (CLASS)-works programme”, an initiative by Viafrica Foundation, an NGO to help schools acquire computers at relatively cheaper rates.

Mr. Onyinah called for the strengthening of the teaching of ICT in schools by ensuring that only qualified teachers were engaged.

He identified the lack of infrastructure, inadequate qualified ICT teachers, unstable and irregular power supply, as major challenges that needed to be tackled to enhance the teaching and learning of ICT in the country.

Miss Margret Simons, the Project Manager of Viafrica Foundation, said her organization, through the “CLASS-works programme”, was facilitating the supply of computers, training and “e-learning” materials to schools at lower prices.

She said, “This is our contribution towards the goal of improving the learning of computers through both formal and informal education, ensuring computer affordability and accessibility and raising the quality of ICT education”.

Ms. Simons said the programme was being piloted in the Ashanti Region and would be replicated across the country in due course.**