Computer literacy programme launched at Berekum

Story: Samuel Duodu, Berekum
March 28
Students from the Yale University in the United States of America (USA) and the World of Friends International School at Berekum in the Brong Ahafo Region have launched a computer literacy programme to complement the efforts of the government in making every school-age child computer literate under the new educational reform.
The Yale University students, who are also members of the World of Friends International, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), and their Ghanaian counterparts at Berekum had also inaugurated a computer laboratory worth $20,000 at the World of Friends International School at Berekum to ensure the success of the programme.
The computer literacy programme is aimed at making all school-age children, especially the under-privileged, in the Berekum municipality and its environs, computer literate, in order to help bridge the digital gap between the urban and the rural child in the country.
The computer laboratory is also connected to the Internet and equipped with educational programmes ranging from Mathematics, English, Science as well as games that would stimulate learning in the child.
Nana (Dr) Henne Ababio, the Co-ordinator for the World of Friends, Ghana, who conducted newsmen round the school premises, near Nsapor on the Berekum Dormaa Ahenkro Highway, said the computer laboratory would be opened to all schoolchildren in the Berekum municipality to enable them to acquire skills and knowledge in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT).
He noted that the World of Friends School near Nsapora at Berekum was established by the World of Friends, Sweden, and their Ghanaian counterparts and the school currently had a pupil population of 400, out of which 60 were orphaned and under-privileged.
Nana Ababio said the 60 orphans and the under-privileged children were being catered for by World of Friends, Sweden, and other NGOs, adding that the World of Friends also ran a Children’s Home at Baiden, near Berekum but was putting up a GH¢200,000 hostel on the school premises to relocate the home from Baiden.
He disclosed further that the school also gave pupils other options of training in photography, mural painting and needle work among others so as to expose the children to other vocations early.
Dr Ababio said the week-long visit by the 12-member student delegation from the University of Yale was facilitated by Prof. Galizi Paulo, a Law Professor from the Fordham University, USA, who also helped with the establishment of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) law school.
The 12-member student delegation, including six males and six females, jointly led by Evan Leitner and Andy-Beck, said their visit was to help establish the computer laboratory to help children of school-age from rural areas and especially the orphaned and the deprived ones to acquire knowledge and skills in ICT.
He said the computer laboratory was a project that would bridge the digital gap between children in the developed world and those of the developing world and felt Ghana should not be left out in this ICT revolution.
They said the ICT programme would also provide a cutting edge for children in the future when it came to employment, since the world was now in the digital age.