BRONG AHAFO GETS ICT CENTRE (PAGE 20, NOV 25)

BRONG Ahafo is the first region in the country to benefit from the community based Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) centre project initiated by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications.
The ICT centre equipped with 50 computers and accessories is located at Penkwase Low Cost, a suburb of Sunyani, near the Medical Village. The facility which is hooked up to the Internet was single-handedly sponsored by the GETFund.
The project which is a gift for the people of Brong Ahafo as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the creation of the region, falls under one of GETFund activities aimed at promoting and improving ICT education at the community level.
According to the GETFund Administrator, Mr Sam Garbah, the ICT centre was a community based project but was consistent with the GETFund mandate of Act 581 of 2000 to support anything that would promote education.
He said the facility forming part of activities of GETFund in promoting Science and Mathematics, ICT, Technical and Vocational education in the country, would be replicated in other parts of the nation.
Mr Garbah emphasised that the GETFund was now focusing on ICT education, adding that the Sunyani ICT centre was a demonstration to that commitment of providing access to ICT education in the country. 
 He stated that since the establishment of the fund, only 1.87 per cent of the total expenditure of GH¢473,569,157.15 for the pre-tertiary sub-sector of education went to support the promotion of the study and propagation of ICT.
He said the allocation of resources for the construction of facilities to expand access for propagation and diffusion of ICT was strategic for the attainment of the Better Ghana promised by the Government.
In that regard, Mr Garbah said the GETFund Board of Trustees had made a firm commitment to significantly scale-up resource allocations for the promotion of productive computer knowledge and usage, as well as for the advancement of Technical and Vocational Education.  
That, he said, would be done in close collaboration and co-operation with the Ministry of Communications.  
“To ensure its sustainability, a management team has been set up to manage the facility under the auspices of the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC), and patrons have to pay a token to help run the place,” Mr Garbah stated.
The Board Chairman of the GETFund, Dr Kwabena Adjei, inaugurating the ICT centre and a students’ hostel at the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Sunyani Campus, recently to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the creation of the region, gave the assurance that the GETFund would be managed prudently.
He pledged that the GETFund would not only be judicious and equitable in the distribution of projects and resources, but would also be accountable to the people.