Accra, June 3, GNA - Vodafone Ghana says its V-LINK phone booths deployed in over 400 Senior High Schools (SHS) holds the key to solving the Ghana Education Service's (GES) ban on the use of mobile phones SHS campuses.

A statement issued in Accra by Mr Patrick Otieku-Boadu, Project Manager of V-Link, Vodafone, said 1,500 phone booths had been rolled out in 413 schools as part of a grand agenda to ensure that students communicated with their parents, guardians and loved ones in a controlled manner that would not affect their studies.

"This will solve the problem the GES seeks to solve with the directive to Heads of SHS to seize mobile phones from students who flout the ban on the use of mobile phones," the statement said. Mr Otieku-Boadu said the phone booths were solar panelled with GSM features to enable students to send and receive text messages. "It has the added feature of benefiting from all the promotions that Vodafone runs on its network on regular mobile phones," he added. Mr Otieku-Boadu said about 400 more phones would be rolled out soon to meet the high demand for booths from other SHSs. He said the management of Vodafone had always been part of this important national project and would work to support the vision of the GES while providing a more regulated means of telecommunications solution to the students.

Mr Isaac Cudjoe, Head of Corporate Communications, at Vodafone, said a remarkable aspect of the V-Link roll-out was that students of the Akropong School for the Blind were benefiting from the V-Link booths installed in the school and were now able to connect with their parents and guardians, regularly, to make their academic concerns known to them," he added. Vodafone introduced its V-Link phone booths as a new concept to replace the GT pay-phones which faced low patronage in the late 1990's. The V-Link functions just like a mobile phone. It uses SIM cards and allows patrons to send and receive text messages, apart from making and receiving calls. It is a solar-based technology.