GRASAG GIJ Wants All Distant Learning Programmes Offline

The Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ Chapter of Graduate Students' Association of Ghana (GRASAG), has called on Government to ensure the proposed distant learning programmes for all students are held offline.

This, it said, was to ensure that even students without data would access the programme.

A statement issued and signed by Nicholas Antwi, President of GRASAG, (GIJ) Chapter and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said even though the move was a good initiative, it must be carried out on offline platforms to make it easily accessible to all students nationwide.

"It's a good initiative but it must be replaced with some digital learning structure to ensure the academic calendar is not affected. These platforms run on data (internet) but there are also offline platforms that can be created to make it easily accessible to students.

"We therefore need to ensure that the platform that will be made available for reading materials and lecture tutorials can be accessed offline," the statement said.

It added that “the alternative, which is to use the online platform requires data (internet), which means government will have to provide the data free of charge to students, something that will not be feasible."

On Sunday, March 15, President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, directed the closure of all schools effective Monday, March 16, as part of measures to curtail the spread of the COVID-19.

The President further directed the Ministry of Communications and the Education Ministry to roll out distance learning programmes to ensure that the academic calendar was not affected.

---GNA