Coderina promotes robotics education in Ghana

An education technology, Coderina Edutech, has donated lego education robotic kits to 21 schools made up of 15 senior high schools and five basic schools.

The robotic kits, worth $11,000, were presented to the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, who in turn presented them to the heads of the selected schools at a ceremony at the ministry yesterday.

The items which were presented to the Minister meant for the school’s use for a robotic contest scheduled to take place in May this year by the Country Representative of the organisation, Mr Ben Amoakoh, presented the robotic kits to Dr Adutwum.

Interest in robotics

In a statement before the presentation, the Board Chairman of the Coderina Edutech, Mr Femi Ajayi, explained that the presentation was part of a collaboration between the organisation and the Ghana Education Service to grow the interest of robotics in pupils and students.

He explained that with the presentation completed, the next stage was to offer training for the schools, particularly the coaches who would be training the participating students.

Mr Ajayi observed that in a few years a number of jobs would be lost and people needed to acquire some skills in order to access those jobs.

He noted that there was a huge gap in quality technology education in Ghana, saying the pupils and students risked being left behind.

Robotics education

Responding, Dr Adutwum hinted that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had directed the construction of 10 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) schools nationwide where robotics would be taught as a subject and not just for a competition.

He stressed that there was the need to formalise robotics education in schools and not just training a handful of students to go and excel in international competitions “and that ends it”.

Examinable subject

“We need to create a structure that will really propel us to the forefront of STEM education, and what that means is robotics should be examinable,” he stated.

Dr Adutwum expressed concern that even though the students at the Mamfe Methodist Girls’ SHS performed brilliantly in the World Robotics, emerging winners, they had nothing to show in their certificates at the end of their schooling that they had knowledge in robotics.

 “I do not understand why a student of the Mamfe Methodist Girls’ SHS should go to a university and has nothing to show on any record that she ever won robotics competition and that she is good at robotics and the university should accept her.

“It has to be on a piece of paper. You cannot do all that work and it does not find any expression whatsoever on your academic records in your school,” Dr Adutwum stressed, describing it as “unfortunate”.