Internet Study Mate Technology programme for SHS students launched

Accra, Sept 21, GNA - The Internet Study Mate Technology (ISM), an Internet-based software designed to enhance effective learning among students in Senior High Schools (SHS), has been launched in Accra on Friday.

The project, which is currently being piloted for fifteen SHSs from four regions, namely, Greater, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Central, was in partnership with the Ministry of Health, Ghana Education Service and Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS).

Mr Gilbert Adah, Founder of the Internet Mate Project, said the project was to use modern technology to bring together SHS students, irrespective of their locations to share ideas, exchange academic work, discuss study materials and have access to quality teaching to supplement what they receive from their various schools.

“The Internet Study Mate Programme is an example of how we can harvest the power of technology to meet the challenges of the 21st century, transcend barriers and make better quality education available and accessible to anyone, anywhere”

According to him, the project sought to bridge the knowledge and achievement gap between high and low performing schools, creating equal quality learning environment, adding that students would also be empowered with essential knowledge and skills in technology to become effective in the digital world.

“The only way we can guarantee equal opportunities for every child in Ghana is to ensure that every child has access to great education - inadequate resources don't have to trap access to quality education”

Mr Adah expressed the hope that the programme would push for the innovative transformation of the country's educational system and pave way for possible models to integrate ICT into the curriculum for engaged learning in schools, urging the Ministry of Education to leverage appropriate technologies for engaged learning.

Launching the Project, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, Executive Director of Healthy Ghana, said that everyone had a role to play towards the development of the country, adding “if anybody is left out of development agenda, it becomes a problem for the country”.

He called on the GES to embrace the new technology and extend it at all levels for the benefit of everybody, charging the students to make good use of the opportunity to better their academic lives.

The ISM Technology would allow each student from every SHS to be registered on the software to network with students from various schools in the country to study, share notes, get update on activities of their peers, among other things.

GNA