Education Ministry, Huawei sign MoU to offer training in ICT

Global ICT company, Huawei, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Education (MoE) to train about 10,000 people in information and communications technology (ICT) within the next three years.

The agreement, which was signed in Accra last Tuesday, forms part of the company’s commitment to grow the capacity of the people in ICT through a Huawei ICT Training (HIT) and also enhance education and industry delivery through the application of technology.

Among those to benefit from the programme are instructors, tertiary students, civil servants and professionals.

As part of the programme, Huawei also intends to pilot a technology-enabled open school system (TOSS) in the country, in partnership with UNESCO, which will connect basic schools and home-based learning for over 1,000 students.

Significance

The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, said the MoU was a crucial first step towards ensuring that people competed at all levels in leading global organisations.

He, therefore, urged the people, especially the youth who were interested in joining the technology industry to take advantage of the opportunity to properly equip themselves.

He also entreated Huawei to introduce more courses in its ICT training programme and make them available to senior high school (SHS) students to enable them to have more ICT skills.

According to Dr Adutwum, plans were underway for the MoE to roll out a number of policies to operationalise specialised science, technology, engineering and mathematics education (STEM) schools, while incorporating professional ICT courses into mainstream academics.

That, he explained, would ensure that students graduated with professional certificates such as the Huawei ICT Academy Professional Certificate to enhance their chances of  getting employed, while making Ghana the hub for ICT in the sub-region.

Commendation

The Managing Director of Huawei Ghana, Mr Tommy Zhou, commended students in Ghana for their hard work and resilience.

“Every year, we hold ICT competitions across various countries in the world and students from Ghana have often excelled in the African region (in 2019 and 2020), which is a big achievement, and we believe we can do better with more effort,” he said.

“We are very pleased to be given this opportunity by the MoE to collaborate on such a project. We will take this opportunity to churn out more ICT talents in Ghana for the accelerated development of the country,” he added.