ICT education needs special attention

Accra, Aug. 18, GNA - The government has been urged to pay special attention to Information Communication and Technology (ICT) education to enable the country's human resource base to become more competitive on the job market.

Various contributors came to the consensus at a stakeholders meeting organised by the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Accra to deliberate on efforts at bridging the digital divide between the urban and rural areas as well as to ensure equal access to Internet facilities to enhance teaching and learning.

The meeting on the theme: "ICT education with prime focus on taking Internet access to schools", brought together ICT stakeholders in both the private and public sector institutions.

Ms Dorothy Gordon, Director General of the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT said the aim of the meeting was to get feedback from the public on focusing its ICT growth in the country. She said government was constructing 230 community information centres in all the 138 districts to enable schools in those areas to be connected to the Internet.

Ms Gordon said the provision of ICT resources would facilitate the teaching and learning in most schools.

Mr Kwaku Buadu, an ICT Engineer said the government had set up a new ICT programme known as the cache mirror server that contained 500 free educational websites for students and schools. He said the Ministry of Education and Sports was also developing an ICT policy and curricula for second cycle institutions.