Students urged to develop interest in ICT

Tamale, July 14, GNA- Mrs. Dorothy K. Gordon, Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Information Communication Technology (ICT) has urged students to embrace the ICT to open up higher horizons for them in their educational pursuits. She said the information technology industry in the developed countries was being driven by the youth and therefore stressed the need to demystify the notion that ICT was for the highly educated. Mrs. Gordon said this at an ICT competition organised for selected Senior Secondary Schools drawn from the Northern, Upper East and West Regions in Tamale on Saturday.

The Competition under the theme: " I can program" was organised by the Ghana/India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Information Technology (ICT) and sponsored by Finatrade.

The competition was aimed at making the students computer literate and also enhancing their skills to enable them to develop computer software from their laboratories for their schools.

She said that ICT was now a necessary tool for educational advancement and the growth and development of every nation, hence the need for every student to acquire computer knowledge.

Mrs. Gordon said the ICT sector was now the rapidly growing area of the economies of the advanced countries and the largest avenue for employment and therefore urged the youth to take ICT seriously if they wanted to get gainful employment.

She disclosed that the government was negotiating with computer service providers to make the cost of computers affordable to low income earners.

Mr. R.S. Kudamo, Northern Regional Assistant Director of Education commended the Kofi Anann Centre for organising the competition and said it would help enrich the students' knowledge on ICT.

He hinted that computer studies would be made a core subject in the first two years upon the commencement of the new educational reforms.

In the competition, the Islamic Secondary School in Tamale emerged first, followed by the Notre dam Secondary School in the Upper East Region and Islamic Secondary School in the Upper West Region. They received computers and other teaching and learning materials as their prizes.