Africa-Press – Ghana. Pressure is heavily mounting on government to fulfil a landmark pledge to give each Ghanaian senior high school student a Computer Tablet, as the October 2024 distribution deadline approaches.
This comes six months after the novel ‘One Student -One Tablet’ project was unveiled by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo in the company of his Vice and Education Minister at a March 25, 2024 national televised event in Accra.
It was a campaign promise to give 2.7 million students, both junior high and senior high schools, free Tablets to support their learning.
The President told a syndicated audience, made up of all who matter in the education large number of in-person and online high school students across the country “at the heart of the initiative is the need to enhance digital learning”.
The initiative has been lauded widely home and abroad with some countries on the continent coming to Ghana to understudy it.
In all, some 1.3 million students are to be given the Tablets containing electronic textbooks and other valuable learning materials in phases.
But between March when the initiative was launched and May, only 70,000 students had received the SM1 Tablets.
This was confirmed by the Ministry of Education who added that “around 70,000 smart tablets had already been distributed to 30 out of the 450,000 schools scheduled to receive them”.
During the International Educators Summit 2024, themed “Reimagining Education for the Future We Seek: Africa and the World in Dialogue,” the Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum assured that, all schools would receive their tablets by October.
“We have begun a momentum, education, technology integration. All high schools within the next two, or three months will get their tablets, everyone. The 1.3 million. We have started already,” he stated.
On June 5, 2024 while addressing “Youth Connect 2024” in Accra, the Flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said “We are the first country, in the whole of Africa, to give all our senior high school students Tablets for free”.
As October draws nearer, seeming agitations are rife among large number of senior high school students who are yet to benefit from the governmental promise.
Students I spoke to in different schools in different Regions told me they have not received the Tablets and wonder why it has taken so long.
“We are currently writing WASSCE, and we thought we were going to have the Tablets before the exams but here we are”, one student said.
But what could be the reason for the delay? Could it be money?
I recall that a day after the launch, the Minority, led by its Deputy Ranking Member of the Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak expressed doubt over government’s ability to deliver the Tablets because there was no budgetary allocation for it.
He claimed the project was launched without approved budget.
“It is worth noting that no provision has been made, either in the 2024 Budget or in the just approved GETFUND Formula to procure more Tablets”.
Only 450,000 Tablets were procured, leaving some 1.288 million Tablets yet to be bought.
Government was silence to the claims by the Minority, signaling that perhaps they had alternative plans to execute the project.
But with barely a month to the October distribution deadline given by the Minister of Education, how is government going to ensure every student receive their Tablets?
The general elections are closer and the Ghanaian electorates are keenly watching.
Source: 3News
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