E-LEARNING COMMENDABLE BUT …

Page 7: Daily Graphic, March 13, 2012 DEVELOPMENTS across the world show that any country or person that lags behind the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) explosion will be left behind. Many of our youth have taken advantage of the ICT boom to equip themselves not only for the job market but also to face the challenges ahead. Conscious of this development, the government took a major decision last year to distribute 60,000 laptops to basic schools under a computerisation project to improve the teaching of ICT in our schools. This policy was criticised, not because it was not worth it but because some of the ICT teachers were themselves not conversant with the use of computers because some of them belong to the generation believed to have been born before computer (BBC). It was also felt that some of the beneficiary schools, particularly those in the rural areas where electricity was not available, would not be able to put the laptops to effective use. It is, therefore, heartwarming that the government has taken the giant step to provide 65,186 teachers in public junior high schools with laptops under a special programme to promote teaching and electronic learning (e-learning) in basic schools. The laptops will be equipped with special Internet modems which will allow the teachers to share ideas on subjects and teaching methods. Teachers in public senior high, vocational and technical schools will also benefit from the project in due course. However commendable these initiatives are, we believe the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the teachers must get themselves in readiness to maximise the benefits from the government’s efforts. Although the teachers are to be provided with training for them to effectively use the laptops, we believe the beneficiaries must take immediate steps to get themselves in readiness to use the laptops. We are in a country where computers lie idle in the offices of workers who should be using them for effectiveness and efficiency but who have abandoned them. The common excuse offered by those who do not use the computers is that they belong to the BBC and so prefer to ignore its use or pass it on to much younger persons. This is not the attitude we expect from our teachers or beneficiaries of the government’s laptop project for teachers. In the developed world, e-learning is the order of the day, with soft copies of textbooks and other documents being easily and readily accessed on the Internet. The Daily Graphic believes that our children need to be equipped and positioned to take advantage of ICT, and what better way to do this than equipping teachers, who are key stakeholders of effective teaching and learning in our schools. We think the GES and the GNAT can take the initiative to start organising ICT training programmes for our teachers, no matter how old they may be. The teachers who hold the BBC view must also be re-oriented to embrace ICT, so that they do not just collect the laptops to hide them in their homes to become museum pieces. After all, there is no end to learning.