Teachers urged to equip themselves with ICT

THE Ghana Education Service (GES), has encouraged teachers to equip themselves with information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills to enable them to teach effectively in the new digital phase of education. 

It said teaching and learning had evolved in the 21st century, with the advent of digitisation, and it was important for teachers to be abreast with digital skills to enhance their work. 

The Director of Schools and Instructions at the GES, Prince Agyemang Duah, said this during a durbar on a piloted Learning Passport initiative rolled out by the GES in collaboration with the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS) with support from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Learning Passport 

The Learning Passport is a platform which aims at providing high-quality digital education to ensure equitable access to education for students and ultimately bridge the poverty learning gap.

According to the World Bank, every child should be able to read by age 10.

When a child is not able to read at that age, a learning deficiency occurs, which is described as learning poverty. 

Learning poverty exists in most countries including Ghana, particularly in deprived homes.

In order to bridge the learning poverty gap, UNICEF, with support from Microsoft, designed the learning passport which can be accessed on any digital device. 

The mobile app helps children to continue learning anywhere and anytime to improve their writing and reading skills. 

It operates both online and offline, and children in non-connecting areas can access the learning platform.

The project is currently being piloted in three basic schools – Haatso Calvary Presby Basic School, Kwabenya M/A Basic III School and La Bawaleshie Presbyterian Basic I School. 

Digitalisation 

Mr Duah said the initiative highlighted the importance of including digitisation in education to enable learners to be well-equipped and empowered to compete globally. 

He said the GES aimed to equip school children with 21st-century technological and digital skills to fully prepare them for the future. 

“This forms part of the ministry’s move to embrace technology and ICT in our schools, making it an integral part of the education system to give students that leverage and opportunity to compete favourably with the rest of the world,” he stressed. 

Upscale 

The Executive Director of CENDLOS, Nana Gyamfi Adwabour, said they were planning to upscale the learning passport initiative to 30 schools across the country after the pilot phase. 

He said the platform offered a wide range of learning materials in literacy and numeracy for the pupils at the basic level to enable them to learn online through audio, pictures and videos. 

Mr Adwabour said CENDLOS came up with the platform after the COVID-19 outbreak when schools were closed and the pupils could not go to school to study. 

He indicated that all the content on the learning passport is GES approved and, therefore, they were not foreign learning items.

The Chief of Education at UNICEF Ghana, Christin McConnell, said the initiative was a step towards complementing the government’s efforts to enhance foundational literacy and numeracy among children, particularly in the face of evolving educational landscapes.