More teachers in Greater Accra, Ashanti receive laptops

The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Dr Eric Nkansah, has inspected another round of distribution of laptops to teachers in the Ashanti Region, bringing the coverage of the One Teacher One Laptop initiative to about 90 per cent.

The Director-General and some officials of the service witnessed the distribution of the laptops to some teachers in the Kumasi metropolis, the Ashanti Regional capital, last Friday, with the assurance to teachers in all districts in the region that in the coming days all eligible teachers would receive their laptops.

Dr Nkansah said even though almost 90 per cent of eligible teachers nationwide had received their laptops, everything possible was being done to ensure a 100 percentage coverage of all teacher beneficiaries.

A similar distribution exercise took place in the Greater Accra Region, where some 600 teachers drawn from the Ada East and West District directorates of the GES took delivery of their computers. 

Context

The GES has stepped up the process to ensure that all teachers in public schools benefit from the initiative. The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, recently gave the assurance that by the end of the mop up next month, all teachers would have benefited from the initiative.

Dr Nkansah commended teachers for their patience, and said many more districts in the region would undertake the distribution exercises in the coming days until all teachers were attended to.

Checks

At Ada Foah in the Ada East District, the visibly anxious teachers were aided by their leaders to secure their share of the laptops after undergoing the administrative process, including the production of their respective Ghana Card and signatures.

Some expressed delight after receiving their computers. In the Ada West District, eligible teachers converged on the District Office at Sege, where the distribution took place.

Almost all eligible teachers received their laptops. The District Director of Education, Stephen Arthur, was grateful to the GES, the Ministry of Education and the teacher unions for the initiative.

“The world has become a global village, and it is working tools such as the laptop computer and the Internet that will make the Ghanaian teacher actively participate in the global village,” he said.

Mr Arthur expressed the hope that the gadgets would be put to good use for the benefit of the beneficiaries and their students. The ongoing distribution is part of a nationwide mop up exercise to ensure that all teachers in public schools benefit from the scheme. 

Background

The government, in a quest to enhance education delivery through information technology, launched the One Teacher One Laptop programme to highlight the importance of information and communication (ICT)-mediated Teacher Professional Development (TPD).

The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, launched the initiative in September 2021 under an aggressive programme to strategically influence teaching and learning outcomes in pre-tertiary educational institutions nationwide.

Under the programme, all teachers in the public school from kindergarten to the senior high school are to receive a laptop computer each to aid them in teaching, lesson preparation, research and learning.

The government will pay 70 per cent of the cost of the laptop, while each teacher pays the remaining 30 per cent.