Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is promising all students at the Secondary school free laptops.
Dr. Bawumia during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Hohoe Evangelical Presbyterian Senior High School stated that the objective of the initiative is to get students ready to conform to the systems of the global village.
“Textbooks and other teaching and learning materials would be installed on the laptops to be used during lessons”
He explained that if the country must move forward in the right direction, then it must invest in education.
The initiative is expected to be executed before the end of 2023.
Meanwhile, a section of the general public has expressed their displeasure about the initiative.
According to them, the government ought to attend to more pressing needs such as the national issue of inadequate infrastructure in educational institutions, issues plaguing the government’s school feeding program, review of the free S.H.S policy, and among others.
Many Ghanaians believe government must solve before implementing the free laptop initiative.
Ghana’s education sector
A major issue in Ghana’s education sector has been low budgetary allocations. Reports have revealed that less of the total expenditure budget has been disbursed to the sector in recent years.
Experts say this has accounted for the unattractive nature of the sector.
A documentary titled “Ghana Schools of Shame” aired by JoyNews revealed staggering figures of students without desks in government schools. This ignited calls for urgent measures to curb the situation.
Students were seen learning under trees and in dilapidated buildings. Some pupils squat or lie down on their bellies to write in their books as a result of a lack of desks.
Following this has been calls for an increase in budgetary allocation to the sector.
12% budgetary allocation is made for the education sector but experts have called for an increase to at least 23%.
“Budget allocation should be increased from 12% to 23%, and this is our job as civil society to come and bring these messages to the government to appreciate the importance of the early stage learning,” Child Rights Activist, Ms. Joyce Larnyoh said on January 24, 2023, on JoyNews’AM Show.
Source: Dehotpress
Thank you for reading from Dehotpress, a Ghanaian news website. You are welcome to share this story on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and you can also follow us there.
Discussion about this post