ONE-TABLET ONE-STUDENT DEPLOYMENT BEGINS
Following the launch of the Ghana Smart School Project by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in March this year, the Ministry of Education has begun the deployment of the tablets to schools across the country.
About 70,000 tablets have been supplied to 30 schools out of 450,000 ready for distribution under the first phase of the exercise.
The distribution is being done through an automated system, which ensures only students captured in the database of Senior High School Secretariat are served.
As part of efforts to ensure that only eligible students receive the tablets, serial numbers of the gadgets have been assigned to each individual student to be able to identify who is using a particular device.
Beneficiary schools so far are Opoku Ware School, Bosomtwe Girls, Ola SHS-Kenyasi, St. James SHS, Bosomtwe STEM Academy, Osei Adutwum SHS, Wesley Girls, Abomosu STEM, Mamfe Methodist, Achimota SHS, Applied Technology Institute, ATTC, Awaso STEM, Kpasemkpe SHS, and OIC.
The rest are Aburi Girls SHS, Nyakrom Senior High Technical, St. Augustine College, Ghana Senior High Technical, Ahantaman Girls SHS, Tarkwa SHS, Accra Academy, Mawuli School, Afua Kobi Ampem Girls SHS, Worawora SHS, Damongo SHS, Nandom SHS, Bolga Girls Senior High School, Notre Dame Girls SHS, and Koase Senior High Technical School.
Ahead of the distribution, IT personnel who have a role to play on the distribution platform had been trained to ensure efficiency in the deployment of the tablets from the headquarters to the school level.
There is also a tracking system which is able to tell when the device is active, sites that students visit as well as its location in the event that it is stolen.
To ensure prompt servicing of the tablets, the Mistry of Education in collaboration with K A Technologies, has set up 274 support centres across the country with at least three technicians at each centre.
The President on March 25, this year launched the Ghana Smart School Project in line with his vision to promote e-learning and digitalisation of the education system.
The goal is to supply 1.4 million tablets which comes with comprehensive management learning system that allows learners to take up self-assessment, access WAEC past questions, and also create blogs to interact with other students.
Embracing an ICT-driven education, according to the Minister for Education, is the way to go as a country determined to produce human resource capable of competing in an era technological advancement.
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum said equipping students with digital skills would not only enhance their academic prowess, but also accelerate the digitalisation of the economy for socio-economic development.
“The President has demonstrated his commitment to transform education in Ghana with the introduction of innovative policies since 2017,” the Minister pointed out.
He said the huge investments made in the education sector would go down as the biggest legacy of the President and called on all stakeholders to play their respective roles to take education in Ghana to the next level.
“We are making significant progress as a nation and the statistics and learning outcomes since 2017 attest to the fact that we are heading towards the right direction under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo,” he noted.
He said beyond the Smart School Project, the government is also building modern laboratories while revamping existing ones in line with the implementation of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.