Pupils in rural schools trained in ICT

Mr. Paul Apanga, Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service, has called on parents to give their wards quality education, including knowledge in Information Communication Technology (ICT) to ensure a brighter future.

He said ICT had become the driving force for nation building across the globe and that Ghana could not afford to excuse itself from that fundamental development, hence the need to promote ICT education at all levels of the country’s development.

Mr. Apanga made the call in Tamale on Friday during the closing ceremony of ICT training for 27 selected pupils drawn from rural communities of the Northern Region. It was organised by Savannah Signatures, an ICT focus NGO based in Tamale.

The pupils, who had spent a week-long training and mentorship programming, were taken through the basics of ICT, software, PowerPoint and mentorship training.

Mr. Apanga said the organisation’s goal was in line with the government’s Basic School Computerization Project, which was being implemented nationwide, adding the Northern region had 150 schools benefiting from the project with 3,600 computers distributed to them (the schools).

He said many teachers had also been trained in ICT for further impact on their teaching and advised pupils to take the study it (ICT) very seriously since knowledge in computer cut across diverse fields.

Mr. Abdul Rashid Imoro, Education Officer, Savannah Signatures, said the NGO took the initiative to train females because they were most deprived in ICT, stressing that various researches had proven that males were more competent than females in ICT.

He said ICT had no boundary in the global arena and encouraged the female students to take interest in the study of the course since it was now compulsory in the country’s educational curricula.