Only 44% of primary schools, 63.9% of JHSs had access to electricity by 2020 — EduWatch

Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch)

A new report highlights that inadequate access to electricity continues to deprive many basic schools in Ghana from achieving the country's digital literacy targets.

According to the Education Alert report published by Africa Education Watch, less than half of primary schools and only around two-thirds of junior high schools had electricity connections as of 2020.

“Even though national electricity coverage exceeds 80% in Ghana, only 44% of primary schools and 63.9% of JHSs had access to electricity by 2020,” the report released on May 10, read in part.

It also finds that only 15% of the over 15,000 public primary schools and 13% of over 11,000 public JHS had functional ICT facilities by the end of the 2022/2023 academic year.

It recommended that political parties address the ICT gap in their 2025-2028 education policies.

It also called on the Ghana Education Service and local governments to collaborate to electrify all basic schools and fund electricity bills to support ICT integration.

"ICT facilities must be made available in every basic school and accessible to both primary and JHSs for effective teaching and learning of Computing," it stated.