Prof. Michael Tagoe- Dean, School of Continuing and Distance Education, University of Ghana
The School of Continuing and Distance Education (SCDE) of the College of Education, University of Ghana has announced the 68th Annual New Year School and Conference.
To be held early next year under the theme “Promoting National Development through Agricultural Modernization: The Role of ICT,” the New Year School and Conference has become an important event on the University of Ghana’s calendar, where every year people of all backgrounds congregate to deliberate on important topics of national and international concerns.
A news release issued by the School of Continuing and Distance Education (SCDE) said having discussed various topics that had covered virtually all aspects of Ghanaian life, the School in 2014 decided to focus on Ghana’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy and how ICT could be deployed and utilized to transform Ghana into an information-rich knowledge-based society.
“Although the policy has been in existence since 2004, the organizers of the Annual New Year School and Conference believe that the ICT4AD policy has been relegated to the background and its mission and objectives appear to have been neglected in national development approaches,” the release said.
Acording to the release, “in order to raise awareness about this policy, the Annual New Year School’s themes have in the last three years focused on ICT and Education (2014), ICT and Governance (2015) and ICT and Health (2016). As we launch the 68th Annual New Year School and Conference, the organizers have identified agriculture as one of the critical sectors that can spur Ghana’s accelerated development because of its links with industry, as the focus of this year’s theme. The agricultural sector is one of the important sectors in which ICTs could be deployed and utilized to support activities including production, processing, marketing and distribution of agricultural products and services.”
By William Yaw Owusu