Vodafone Ghana Foundation launches online education platform

Students and pupils in Ghana can now access a wide range of educational materials on an online platform provided by Vodafone Ghana Foundation to enhance educational delivery.

The initiative, known as “Vodafone Instant School”, will provide pupils and students from the basic to the tertiary level access to educational resources on a wide range of subjects to help them with their studies.

It is being partnered by Learning Equality, a leading provider of open-source educational technology solutions, and the Khan Academy.

Educational materials

At the launch of the project in Accra last Thursday, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana, Ms Yolanda Cuba, said the initiative, which is available in all African countries where Vodafone operates, was aimed at providing millions of people free access to online learning materials.

She said she was hopeful that the initiative would help address the problem of lack of or inadequate teaching materials, textbooks, practical books, assessment worksheets and classroom aids in schools in Ghana and other parts of Africa.

Apart from tutorials and practical work examples on subjects such as Mathematics, English Language, Science, Arts and Business courses, there were also past questions for students to access, she explained.

“The instant classrooms platform is one of the unique avenues we are adopting to digitally touch the lives of the youth,” Ms Cuba said.

Local content

Ms Cuba expressed the hope that the platform would provide students in Ghana with an opportunity to compete on the same level with their counterparts in the developed world.

She said Vodafone Ghana was in discussions with the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to have a section that would support the country’s educational curricula by early next year.

In a remark, an Assistant Director in charge of Tertiary Education at the GES, Papa Kojo Sam, lauded the initiative and said the service would collaborate with Vodafone Ghana to enhance and promote education in Ghana.

The platform

On how the public could access the platform, the Corporate Communications Manager of Vodafone Ghana, Mr Ebenezer Amankwa, said Vodafone subscribers could access it for free, while other network users could use it for a fee.

He said children from six years could use the materials on the platform.