GeSCI: E-Schools in Ghana

In the past five years Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) has starting bringing hope to the educational system throughout Ghana. There have been several steps taken during this period. Changes at this level take lots of research and planing.

The project began in 2003 when GeSCI start doing research concerning the issues facing Ghana’s educational system. What where the problems and what needed to be taken first and then next? In order to find this out GeSCI interviewed teachers, the Ministry of Education, non-governmental organizations, share holders and private sector groups. During these interviews they found out the most need issues was a high-drop out rate for all level of students. And the major contributor to this was an inadequate amount of trained teachers, materials and other tools for a proper level of education.

This research brought about an initial surge creating Ghana e-Schools and Communities Initiative as well as an oversight community insure the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ITCs). In the educational system.

In April of the following year, 2004, the UN founded group GeSCI sent representatives back to Ghana to hold a 2-day workshop. These two days were spent progressing the development of the national e-schools strategy. The purposes of the workshop where to:

- Highlight the questions that need to be answered in a detailed national Ghanaian e-schools plan

- Generate discussion around potential answers to these questions

- Facilitate the group in creating a time frame for writing sections of the plan and for the final version of the plan

- Identify people to be involved with writing the plan

Continuing with their work in Ghana, GeSCI hired Denise Clarke, a Country Programme Facilitator, to work with the Ministry of Education. Much of Clarke’s work has been focusing on:

- Developing the capacity of the staff within the Ministry. GeSCI has organized a number of workshops, as well as an ongoing series of peer to peer knowledge exchanges with counterparts from other African Countries;

- Conducting the ICT Deployment and Usage Survey to determine current practices, capabilities, and needs in the education system;

- Facilitating global partnerships to assist the Ministry in building up its ICT infrastructure;

- Developing a framework for integrating ICTs in curriculum development and teacher education.

Later that year in September, the Ministry of Education came together with GeSCI and came up with a work-plan for ICT4E. In January of 2007 the policy was finalized. The two groups worked together to insure the policies of the ICTs were aligned to support the educational reforms that were to be applied to the curricula in September 2007. Training Needs Assessments (TNA) were giving to the Curriculum Research and Development Division (CRDD) and from that recommendations for the best course of action were made.

The Ministry of Education set a date in Summer of 2008 for the launch of the Implementation Plan. In the 12 months to follow, GeSCI assisted in the building capacity within the MoE; to contribute to the development of a detailed implementation plan as well as lend guidance to the Ministry of Ministry as they address some of the jointly identified challenges towards the achievement of this plan.

As you can see there has been substantial work done in Ghana. As GeSCI continues to work with groups in the country ICTs are being place into action and schools in these areas are poised to benefit. The more I learn about this organization the more hope I have for education in countries such as Bolivia, Rwanda, Namibia and India.