NEPAD e-school conference ends in Accra

Government is committed to implement appropriate policies to ensure that Information Communication Technology (ICT) become the main tool to enhance teaching and learning in all schools.

Reverend Emmanuel Dadebo, Head of Teacher Education Division of Ghana Education Service, who made this known on Tuesday said government would therefore, ensure that the implementation of ICT in schools would be successful, but needed the support of private entities to help achieve its development agenda.

Rev Dadebo was addressing the media after a two-day conference to facilitate Private Sector Investment and Support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) e-school initiative in West Africa in Accra.

He said the conference was to discuss ways of introducing a new Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for the e-school initiative where the private sector could be involved.

Rev Dadebo, noted that it was a capital intensive project, which called for a strategic partnership to ensure that the support derived from the business community would ensure that the cost attached to deploying ICT would be shared, so that the programme became sustainable.

“The PPP model is intended to make ICT sustainable in both government and private schools in Africa."

Rev Dadebo said, the new PPP model was expected to offer a long term solution to the sustainability of the e-school initiative and help address some of the challenges and constraints experienced in previous projects.

He said it was to help achieve the objective of e-schooling, give children the opportunity to develop their full potentials as well as involve the private sector to make the required impact on the development of education.

The PPP is a new model of the NEPAD e-school designed to develop and provide ICT infrastructure, to both government and private schools in Africa.

NEPAD e-school is a multi-country, multi-stakeholder, continental initiative to teach ICT skills to young Africans in primary and second cycle schools to improve the provision of education through ICT application and the use of the internet.

The first phase of the initiative was a demonstration project, participated by six schools each in 16 African countries to establish a body of knowledge, based on real life experiences to introduce ICT in schools across the Continent.**