100 teachers receive ICT skills training through Girls-In-ICT program

The Girls-In-ICT (GIICT) initiative, a flagship programme under the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation (MoCD) is currently ongoing at Tamale in the Northern Region.

It is aimed at equipping 100 Teachers with Information Communication Technologies (ICT) skills as part of efforts to develop the capacity of teachers to enable them impart knowledge to the 1000 girls to be selected from various communities to be trained in the region as part of the programme.

The Girls-in-ICT Initiative starts with the training of teachers in various Modules such as Fundamentals in ICT, Scratch Programming (Coding), Cyber Security, Gaming, Website Development, Project Presentation and Animation Development.

This year’s programme is being organized under the theme: “Girls-In-ICT, Digital Skills for Life”.

The selection of 100 teachers was in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (GES) from the 16 districts in the Northern Region.

The districts are, Mion District ; Karaga District; Tolon Districts; Kumbungu Districts; Savelugu Municipal; Tamale Metro; Nanton District; Sagnarigu Municpal Kpandai District .

The rest are Tatali District; Gushegu District; Nanumba South; Nanumba North; Yendi Municipal; Saboaba District; Zabzugu District

The Director for Human Resource Management at the Ministry, Mr. Austin Hesse, who delivered a speech at the opening Ceremony of the Trainer of Trainers on behalf of the Sector Minister, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful (MP), said digital inclusion has increasingly become an important part of everyday life which is a requirement for success in both the classroom and the world of work.

“Particularly our adolescent girls and young women have very limited digital skills and are thus disadvantaged in today’s digital economy. The demonstration of that fact can be seen in the number of ICT/STEM female teachers selected from the various communities to represent this Region. Experts in the field are predicting that the world is gravitating towards an intelligent world, and we cannot afford to be left behind”, he explained

He noted that government, through the ministry has prioritized the Girls in ICT Initiative above other commitments, hence, the content of the programme being enriched to make it more impactful, to increase the frequency of implementation and the number of girls trained annually to 5,000 girls and 500 IT/STEM Teachers.

For his part, the Northern Regional Minister, Hon. Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu, expressed gratitude and heartfelt appreciation to MoCD, the Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence (KACE), Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) and all other implementing partners for the opportunity to impact positively on the development of the girl-child.

“I entreat and encourage all the participating teachers and ICT instructors to be trained to put in maximum effort and pay attention to all details to enable them get insight into the basics of ICT”, he stated

The Savannah Regional Director of Education, Hajia Katumi Natogmah Attah pledged her support for the programme to achieve its objective. “We all have to play our roles to ensure the success of the programme. The participating teachers present, the Ghana Education Service and all partnering institutions should make commitments to put into good use all the various efforts by Government and Development Partners in the area of ICT to better the lives of our girls”.