Government Okays ICT Training For The Physically Challenged

Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa - deputy Information Minister

Cabinet has approved a training programme under which 5,000 challenged persons are to be equipped with employable skills in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), mobile phone and computer assembling and repairs.

The government/private sector collaboration, which will commence next month, is expected to cost GH¢21,741,410, with rLG Communications Limited, a communications company, absorbing GH¢1,983,000 of the total cost.

A Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, told the Daily Graphic after a Cabinet session that the traditional training of challenged people in crafts such as basket and mat-weaving, leather craft and wood work was outmoded and overtaken by modern technological advancement.

The Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MESW), as part of its mandate, is to facilitate the integration of the challenged, vulnerable and the extreme poor into mainstream national development.

In view of the mandate, Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa said the MESW sought to collaborate with rLG Communications to train 5,000 PWDs who would be drawn from all parts of the country within 13 months.

He said the objective of the programme was to build the capacity of the challenged with contemporary technology that would empower them with sustainable employable skills.

He said although challenged people formed about 20 per cent of the national population, as a result of their circumstances, a large number of them were denied formal education and, as a result, they found themselves begging for alms, stressing that it was crucial that their potential was unearthed and tapped for national development.

He said the government had shown enormous commitment to the plight of the challenged by the passage of the Disability Law, the setting up of the National Council on Persons with Disability (NCPD) and the appropriation of two per cent of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to them.

Mr Ablakwa said the government had further confirmed its obligation to ensure improvement in the standard of living of that segment of the population, in line with the “Better Ghana” agenda.

He said the role of the private sector was also critical to the creation of productive employment, stressing that “the partnership with rLG Communications is appropriate, as it will support the government’s efforts at reducing the unemployment situation, particularly among PWDs”.

On gender equality, he said while the overall women’s participation rate in the labour force was high, women were mainly restricted in a range of income-earning activities, predominantly agriculture and informal sector trading and manufacturing.

“The programme will seek to give equal access to as many challenged females to ensure fairness, create opportunities, as well as challenge them to turn around the perception,” Mr Ablakwa said.