Northern Ghanaians Association in Belgium donates ICT equipment to rural schools(D/G Monday February 18, 2013 Page 22)

Story & Pix: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga Four cluster of schools at Kantia in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region have received educational materials worth Euros 8,000 from the Northern Ghanaians Association in Belgium to ensure effective teaching and learning. The beneficiary schools, namely Kantia Primary, Grace Preparatory Animoa Primary and Afega No. 1 Junior High Schools were given 30 flat screen desktop computers, two laptops, two overhead projectors, three multifunctional prints, I multifunctional photocopier, and a 12000 VA UPS . The gadgets will be installed at a central pointe to facilitate the teaching and learning of information, communication and technology in the beneficial schools. Mr Lawrence Abagnaba, a member of the Ghana Council in Belgium who handed over the items to the community members at a brief ceremony said te donation was facilitated buy the City of Antwerp and was meant to complement government’s efforts towards promoting the teaching and learning of ICT education especially among the youth in deprived communities in Northern Ghana. He said council would continue to support initiatives such as this to help improve livelihoods of the less privilege and also to reduce poverty. He advised the various school management committees to take good care of the facilities and provide the necessary security at the central ICT centre to be created in order to derive the desired benefit from the gesture. The Deputy Director, Supervision at the Bolgatanga Municipal Office of the Ghana Education Service, Mr Mark Nabia who received the items on behalf of the schools, thanked the donor for the kind gesture. He said the items will go a long way to boost the teaching and learning of ICT seeing that government has rolled our an intense programme to provide each child with a computer. He said said given the critical role of ICT in today’s globalized world the Ghanaian youth could not afford to be left behind.The nation, he said, has therefore to put in a programme to provide schools with ICT infrastructure and gestures like this goes to complement government's effort at helping students acquire the requisite skills to compete favourably with their counterparts, elsewhere across the world. He also stressed on the effective and efficient use of the gadgets to ensure that it utilize for the purpose for which they were presented. The MP for Bolgatanga East, Dr Dominic Ayine who was present at the presentation ceremony, advices the pupils to ate their studies seriously in to become well informed and better educated citizens in the future. The Headmaster of Kantia Primary School, Mr Yakubu Alhassan on behalf of the beneficiary School, expressed appreciation to the donor to for the items and pledged to ensure the proper use of the gadgets to advance the teaching and learning of ICT in the schools.