The Lit Empowerment and Support Incorporation, a Ghanaian-based NGO providing ICT training and social support to the less privileged and school children in the rural areas, has expressed the need for Government to create equal opportunities for the learning and use of ICT by all schools in both urban and rural communities.
The learning of ICT, the NGO emphasized has become a basic necessity for every school going child or every nation all over the world that want to develop socially and economically.
Speaking in an interview with WatchGhana.Com after recent donations to some deprived schools in the Gomoa West District, the Executive Director of Lit Empowerment, Madam Evelyn Amponsah said it was unacceptable for Ghana to continue to discriminate against schools and pupils in the deprived areas in the provision of modern infrastructure and tools that support the teaching and learning of ICT.
She described as quite unfair for those pupils in the deprived schools to sit for the same examination with those in the urban schools, without going through the requisite ICT training.
She observed that Ghana would not be able to benefit fully from the quality of talents, knowledge and potentials of those children in deprived schools if measures are not taken to address their challenges and the high disparities between the urban and rural schools especially in the area of infrastructure and ICT training.
The renowned female ICT expert and philanthropist said whiles children in the urban schools are vigorously using ICT to do research, download different books and relevant learning materials to enhance their knowledge, same could not be said about those in the rural schools.
Madam Amponsah therefore appealed to Government to make it a priority and extend electricity to the rural schools or provide standby generators for the purposes of ICT lessons so that the pupils could receive practical ICT training like those in the cities.
Currently, there are still several thousands of school children in the rural part of Ghana who have never seen, touched or manipulated computer before, yet they indifferently write examination on ICT.
With Ghana daring to become a digital nation, Madam Amponsah believes much efforts need to be exerted to empower the citizenry especially students and the business community to embrace the new trend.
File Photo: Pupils receive books from Lit Empowerment
“In today’s world, every business uses technology for every transaction. Technology in recent times has had significant effects on business operations. Irrespective of your enterprises’ size, technology has lots of benefits that will help you thrive in a competitive environment and produce the results customers are demanding for. So if we really want to advance as a nation we must get things right, and emphasis must be placed on the teaching and learning of ICT at basic and secondary school levels in particularâ€.
Madam Amponsah who called on both local and international donors to support the vision of Lit Empowerment, pledged the commitment of her organization to continue to support the rural communities with the little resources available.
She noted that over the years, Lit Empowerment has evolved from providing technical services to individuals in the rural setting to providing curricular and practical support in ICT for primary and secondary school institutions.
Some of the items the organization donated were; Exercise books, Textbooks, Pencils, Erasers and Pencil sharps for only class one pupils in four schools in different communities including the beneficiary schools are the Gomoa Ofaso Anglican Basic School, Gomoa Tarkwa Catholic Basic School, Gomoa Tarkwa Methodist Basic School and the Gomoa Tarkwa Islamic Basic School.
Source: Kofi Osman: Developer & Project Manager at Lit
, December 11, 2019