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Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)
THE GOVERNMENT is committed to the deployment of requisite tools and strategies to achieve the broad goal of every Ghanaian learner to be able to use ICTS confidently and creatively by 2015 because of the present information society and the global knowledge economy.
To this end, Government would equip students, teachers and educationists with the needed skills and knowledge necessary for this digital age by rolling out two key strategic plans on ICTs in educational institutions.
This was made known by Hon. Papa Owusu-Ankomah, Minister of Education, Science and Sports at the official launch of a mycoursemate website in Accra.
In a speech read on his behalf by Mr. Pettwel Danyo, acting Director of Tertiary Education of the Ministry, Papa Owusu-Ankomah said under the two key strategic plans to roll-out ICTs in our educational institutions, a Ghana-schools and Communities Initiative or GeSCI supported in part by Global eSchools and Communities Initiative of the UN ICT Task Force and the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative of the African Union (AU) would be co-ordinated by the e-Africa Commission.
He noted also that as part of driving education delivery at the basic level with technology, a memorandum of understanding has been signed with the ICT Education for Africa (IESA) Foundation and they were expected to provide 70,000 refurbished computers for basic schools from 2006 to 2010.
Further, the Minister said the Ministry of Communications, in collaboration with Intel Corporation, Deon 2000 and other companies, have made acquisition of computers affordable to teachers and other Government employees, noting that from now on, teachers could buy Discover Personal computers for an all-time low of 3.5 million cedis payable over a period of 12 months after making an initial deposit of 10 per cent of the cost and interested teachers are being requested to enquire from the Ministry through the Ghana Education Service.
Papa Owusu-Ankomah said in all these initiatives, the Government was seeking to champion an orchestrated commitment to a development crusade through education as a key and thus, "the Government is conscious of its obligations to provide quality education through ICT for its citizens and would do all it can to achieve this goal."
He observed that it was the Government's desire that through the deployment of ICT in education, the culture and practice of traditional memory-based learning would be transformed through education that stimulates thinking and creativity necessary to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
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