Eight schools to benefit from computer training

Tamale, Sept 29, GNA - The Centre for Information, Technologies, Research and Development (CITRED), a communication consultancy, has selected eight Senior Secondary Schools in the Northern Region for training in computer literacy.

The beneficiaries are the Ghana Secondary School, St. Charles Secondary School, Islamic Secondary School, Vitting Secondary/Technical School, Kalpohin Secondary School, Saboba Secondary School, Dagbon State Secondary School and Nakpanduri Business Secondary School. Mr Jonnie Akakpo, Team leader of CITRED, announced this in Tamale on Wednesday at the launch of a UNESCO/Information for All Programme (IFAP) on the Information and Communication Technology Project (ICT) for Senior Secondary Schools in the region.

Mr Akakpo said the project, which the UNESCO/IFAP were funding, had selected 10 promising students, two teachers, and a librarian from each of the schools to train them in keyboard skills, E-learning and computers/internet spanning mathematics, science, health and the environment among other subjects.

The project would also create a platform for the schools to network, share ideas, experiences and challenges.

Mr Akakpo said quality education was fundamental to addressing development problems and bridging the information gap between the information rich and poor countries.

He said there was an urgent need to provide education that would go beyond teaching basic literacy and numeric skills. "It is in this light that education must help to build higher order cognitive abilities, strengthen processes of inquiry, engender collaborative problem solving and prepare people to compete in the global market and become productive members of democracies, he said. Mr Akakpo said computers and the Internet should enhance student-focused education, which encourages and facilitates learners' discovery and knowledge creation rather than conventional teacher-centred delivery of facts."

Mr Mohammed Baba, Tamale Metropolitan Coordinating Director, said information had now become the dominant factor that would determine the progress of every nation and for Ghana not to be left behind there was the need for the country to embark on a vigorous ICT training. Mr Baba commended CITRED and UNESCO for including teachers and librarians in the project and gave the assurance that as the Assembly was already funding Science, Technology and Mathematics Education (STME) clinics, it would equally fund the study of ICT in schools. Mr Chikpah Demuyakor, Northern Regional Director of Education, urged students to take ICT seriously.

He held that if the youth mastered the ICT, they would become computer experts and help "dismantle the shackles of poverty tormenting Ghanaians, possibly through the export of the expertise to other countries".