By Alexander Nyarko Yeboah, GNA
Tema, Oct. 12, GNA – The first Bridge
Digital Library Project in Ghana has been launched in the Tema West
Municipality to enhance quality education delivery.
The project, which is a collaborative effort
between The Mothers of Africa and US Africa Children Fellowship (USACF), will
ensure that children in Ghana with limited access to the internet could still
work with internet based educational materials.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency
(GNA) on Friday on the sidelines of the launch at the Kotobabi No. 2 Primary
School, Tema, the Director of Design & Engineering of The Bridge Project,
Mr. Manning Sutton, informed that there were a lot of open source materials on
the internet that could be shared at no cost, which was a good opportunity for
deprived communities.
Mr. Sutton explained that there were many
people who lacked access to the internet facility, but “there is another way, a
lower cost way, that is to download the material from the internet into a
device to bring it to where they don’t have the internet.”
He said the device “had memory and therefore
was able to and a wifi hotspot, if you connect it to your phone, it feels like
you are on the internet,” he said.
Mr. Sutton said such a learning tool was
advantageous for young people because they were protected from the harmful
aspects of the internet and only made them concentrate on the consumption of
educational materials.
“So we are saying to teachers and
stakeholders that here is a technology you can use to assist people with very
limited resources and give them an outstanding number of resources,” he said.
In a keynote address before the launch, the
President of The Mothers Of Africa, Madam Lucy Nana Ama Essuman, hinted that
Information Communication Technology (ICT) addressed the many challenges facing
Ghanaians.
In recounting the benefits of the digital
library, Madam Essuman said “it is an undeniable fact that an enabling ICT
environment was needed to enhance teaching and learning in Ghanaian schools to
give better access to knowledge and innovation. This has lead to the
development of initiatives such as electronic learning and digital libraries.”
She asked government to ensure that all
schools acquired the facility taking into consideration the fact that some
schools were more endowed.
The Municipal Director of Education for Tema
West, Mr. Francis Steel, told of the enthusiasm of governments to project
education which would translate into achieving Ghana’s national goals of
preparing the children adequately for tomorrow.
Mr. Steel, in responding to the question of
inadequate facility to support such a programme, said “we aren’t expected to
get all the inputs before we start, and that there are plans to roll it out to
all schools across the nation.”
In a welcoming address, the Municipal Chief
Executive (MCE) of Tema West, Mrs Adwoa Amoako, lauded the Project by saying it
had come at the right time, “As President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo is bent
on promoting effectiveness and efficiency in the educational sector.”
Mrs. Amoako informed that the provision of
infrastructure and educational tools was expensive therefore the digitized tool
came in handy to help advance the provision of educational materials for
schools.
The MCE said Ghana had a future in
education therefore prioritizing
investment in that sector to ensure a
fair and inclusive quality educational system to created life transforming
opportunities for all was a worthy cause pursued by government.
GNA
