Opoku Ware SHS is first Smart School

Opoku Ware Senior High School in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital, has become the first Smart School in the country after the Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, inaugurated a new classroom block for the school, fitted with digital devices such as smart boards, computers and internet access to facilitate usage.

The smart block has been named after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who launched the project in March this year. Vice-President Bawumia, who has been in the region on a campaign tour for the past three days and inaugurated the facility yesterday, described it as historic.

"Ghana is among few countries in the world where government supplies students with tablet computers to ensure the future does not elude our children,” he said. Dr Bawumia was accompanied by some Members of Parliament, senior party officials and education managers. 

Background

President Akufo-Addo launched the Ghana Smart Schools Project in Accra on March 25, this year, and said existing facilities in public senior high schools were to be transformed into smart schools while new structures would be built for schools in some areas.

Under the project, students are to be given free computer tablets to facilitate learning. Teachers and staff of the Ghana Education Service would also be provided with the laptops to facilitate research, teaching and learning under a separate arrangement.

Both the laptops and the tablets contain downloaded learning materials, including textbooks. 

Digital age

The Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, said at the presentation event that “Ghana cannot be left out of the digital age”. “Ghanaian students must face the fourth industrial revolution with a sense of pride and a mindset for growth,” he said to a cheering crowd of students.

The Headmaster of the school, who is also the President of the Conference of the Heads of Assisted Schools (CHASS), Rev. Fr Steven Owusu Sekyere, pledged to put the smart devices to good use. 

Context

A total of 1.2 million children in public senior high schools across the country are to benefit from the free gadgets. The distribution began in March this year, and many schools have already distributed the tablets to their students under different phases of the project distribution plan.

The initiative is intended to strengthen and enhance quality delivery and outcomes in the beneficiary schools. Earlier this week, the government indicated plans to introduce a law, Free SHS Act, to back the programme.