The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation has planned to distribute 100 laptops to Girls-in- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Eastern Region.
The Ministry introduced the Girls-in-ICT initiative in 2012 as part of measures to bridge the gender digital gap existing within the ICT space, as well as to empower young girls and uplift their level of education through ICT.
Speaking to the media after the opening ceremony of a Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop held at the Conference Hall of the Eastern Regional Coordinating Council (ERCC) office, the Programs Officer at the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, Mr. Isaac Newton, said the initiative was introduced to help improve the knowledge of students on the new digitalisation economy.
According to him, the Ministry had targeted to train one thousand students in the Eastern Region in an effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of Equal Access to Education (SDG 4) and Gender Equity (SDG 5).
He stated that the Ministry, through the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC), was constructing modern ICT labs for schools in the country.
Mr. Isaac Newton added that the Ministry was committed to spreading and advancing the knowledge of ICT among young girls at upper primary and Junior High Schools (JHS) in deprived areas of the country.
He disclosed that, even though the initiative was adopted in 2012, the current Minister and his charges had extended the programme in terms of contents and figures.
Mr. Newton explained that the total number of girls trained used to be within a range of 600, but the current Minister had improved it to 1,000 per region within three times in a year, meaning 3,000 girls and 300 teachers were trained in a year.
The trainers’ are teachers with ICT, science, and mathematics backgrounds, who were carefully selected from the various schools across the region, who train and onward train these girls for a period of three weeks.
For the purpose of this training, the region, which is made up of 33 districts, was divided into three manageable districts in batches with approximately 333 girls per each district, who will start their training from November 9 to the end of the month.
The beneficiary young girls, who are from upper primary and Junior High Schools, were selected by their schools through the help of the Ghana Education Service.
The girls will be taking through fundamental computer skills, web development, animation and game development, and introduction to coding, and those who demonstrate strong desire to develop any app or programme would get the support of the Ministry in commercialising these programmes.
The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr. Seth Kwame Acheampong, in his speech, said that the initiative was an opportunity for girls to be exposed to ICT at an early stage and enable them gain experience with the basics of computers.
He said that the initiative would help guide young girls to choose courses and subjects relating to their career development in the future.
Mr. Seth Acheampong extolled the teachers who had accepted the call to be worthy ambassadors of the girls-in-ICT program to acquire the requisite knowledge and skills and extend it to girls at the various schools.
“The girls cannot gain these experiences on their own without the guidance and directions of their own ICT teachers who they are familiar with and can confide in when it comes to the impartation of knowledge, skills and abilities,” said Seth Acheampong.
He continued that this generation is governed by, among other things, the internet and there is a need to give them the necessary skills and opportunities to create wealth and secure their future.
Mr. Seth Acheampong averred that ICT has changed how people live and it has become a tool for economic, interpersonal, societal transactions and interactions.
“It is important that we understand the rudiments of ICT so that it can be used to our advantage now and in the future,” he added.
On her part, the Project Manager at Kofi Anan Center of Excellence in ICT, Madam Priscilla Hope, paid glowing tribute to the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation for the initiative.
According to her, technology had become the order of the day, reducing the world to a global village through the use of ICT, but studies had shown that young girls lacked relative knowledge in ICT, hence, the initiative to bridge that gap and whip up the interest of these young girls.
She argued that “when you get to the field we have about 90 percent of men with just 10 percent making up for women who have interest in ICT hence the essence of the project to inspire the girls at various schools in the country.”
