Coronavirus has exposed Ghana’s knowledge in technology – Angel Carbonu

National President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Eric Angel Carbonu has said the outbreak of coronavirus in the country has brought to bear the ignorance of Ghanaians in the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

According to him, the introduction of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in schools has not been braced with seriousness because Ghanaians are not used to doing things virtually.

Speaking on Citi TV, the NAGRAT president said, “Unfortunately, as a nation, we have not taken ICT very seriously, we’ve not taken technology very seriously and COVID-19 has really exposed us big time. You see officials attending speech and prize giving days, ceremonies all over the years…we’ve not gone beyond the flowery talk and we’ve been stripped naked.”

He added the lack of interest and the inaccessibility of technological devices in some urban and rural areas in the country has also made it very difficult for teachers to get in touch with their students like other private schools are doing in the past 6 weeks that students have been home.

For public schools students who are not technologically inclined, they've been home sleeping and playing all these while when they could have equally benefitted from this online education.

Mr Carbonu noted, “As teachers, we are very confused. A few of us within the urban areas are trying as much as we can to reach out to our students through technology but I can assure you that even the technological coverage in the urban areas is very challenging let alone the rural areas and the hinterlands.”

He indicated that over the years, successive governments have not established the infrastructural foundation to ensure that technology is used in the transmission of lessons.

Mr Carbonu then advised that both teachers and students must be trained to make use of technology post-COVID-19.