“We further conclude that plans to procure 1.3 million laptops are ill-informed and not backed by feasibility nor informed by education objectives”
-Kofi Asare, Executive Director; Eduwatch
We recall – with nostalgia not disregard – our ‘first day’ in school; with a number of books packed on a slate and a box of chalk. We carried them on our heads. We were to use the chalk to learn how to write. Chalk could easily be erased and the teacher’s blackboard will be blackened with charcoal paste by the talkers (Not talkatives) in class.
Then up to P4, we would start using pen – holder with a nib, plus a bottle of ink (Lion, Quick…) Up to P6, we were forbidden to use the ‘biro’, we had a good stock of books (English, Mathematics, Geography, History…) and supplementary readers: Robin Hood (Howard Pyle) Tom Brown’s School Days (Thomas Hughes) Around the world in 80 Days (Jules Verne). The school libraries had many books’ in stock for our reading during “breaks”.
Unlike us, our children had to put their books in school bags, straddled at their backs – they remind us of Oshin, the Japanese girl who in the eighties defied poverty and related problems to grow into a well – to – do lady. Oshin, written by Sugako Hashida, was an ‘asadora’ (morning 15 – minute drama) targeted at housewives.
We are now in the digital age, and our schools would not be left behind – “One student, one laptop’, Vice – President Bawumia says, and adds: “If this country must move forward in the right direction we must invest in education which is the only platform for preparing nation builders for tomorrow” Why not? The hardworking Minister of Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, had prepared the ground, so an emboldened Vice – President, Dr. Bawumia would announce: “This year, we are on course to provide all Senior High School students in Ghana with tablets which are loaded with textbooks on them for their studies. That’s a very game – changing development. We will have past questions preloaded on these tablets that will be distributed to all and I pray that it does come to pass this year…” Halleluiah, don’t be a naysayer, Sanballat and Tobiah!
The Vice President was addressing delegates at the 2023 Annual New Year School and Conference at the University of Ghana, Legon in January, 2023. This year’s 74th New Year School had the theme: “Positioning the African Market for Sustainable Economic Development through African Continental Free Tarde Area.”
And during the 60th anniversary celebration of the Hohoe Evangelical Presbyterian High School, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia had announced that the laptops would be equipped with textbooks and other teaching and learning materials for use during lessons. And in September, 2021, the government had launched the “One teacher, one – laptop project, so teachers all over Ghana were supposed to have been supplied with these laptops by the end of this year, 2023, since 80% of teachers had been supplied the laptops by December 2021.
But Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, the Member of Parliament for Tamale Central thinks the Vice President’s speech was just “for political gains and not well thought through”. Murtala Mohammed argues a government which cannot even print textbooks for students promises to give students free laptops “The only motivation behind this statement is that the Vice President wants to get money to prosecute his campaign, so that they can give that money to somebody so that they can have their cuts… we were all made to understand that the state was buying the laptops for teachers… they have deducted the monies from the teachers’ salaries…some of them haven’t gotten their laptops, and for those who have got them, they did not last for more than three months’. A lot of communities in his (Dr. Bawumia’s) region not far from his home town don’t have lights… how are these people going to charge the laptops? So this means that if the laptops are not charged, teaching and learning cannot take place… this is the most useless statement that l have ever heard coming from a Vice President who should know that we need to fix the problems at the basic levels before we think of giving tablets to the secondary schools.” Do we need to talk about students lying on their bellies to write?
And the Ghana Publishers Association has prescribed the use of laptop alongside textbooks in SHS, instead of abolishing the latter altogether. Among others, the GPA think the country did not have the infrastructure in the regions and districts to handle such digital facilities for uploading content, replacement, repairs…” In our third world economy we have a lot of challenges and we have not got there yet even training the children on how to use the tablets, how to navigate them by way of looking for content, how to save… you need to go down to the regions and districts to create laboratories where the children would send the tablets when they are faulty for repairs….” Mr. Yamoah was concerned about the lack of engagement with stakeholders including the publishers, adding that lack of adequate consultation on certain initiatives in the past, they ended up having challenges. Mr. Yamoah concluded: “This should not be a political manifesto thing: it should not be a state – calculated and engineered agenda to improve education by using digital learning to augment what is already there, led by stakeholders not a Ministry of Education – controlled thing”.
In a joint statement at a press conference in Accra, Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Eduwatch one of the three CSOs urging government to discontinue plans to procure laptops for SHSs stressed: “Plans to spend over a billion cedis on laptops for e-textbooks for SHS students at a time there are adequate printed text books in SHS are inconsistent with the austerity period Ghana finds itself in, more so when brutal cuts have been inflicted on the basic education budget”.
African Education Watch (Eduwatch), Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), Platform in Sustainable Development Goals representing over 500 organizations stated that e-textbooks could never replace printed textbooks but rather complemented them.
As we muse over these issues, we get tickled by one piece of advice by an educationalist, Daniel Wong: “Don’t expect to become an educated person just by going to school -there are many skills you won’t master through formal education alone (persuasion, negotiation, adaptive thinking) … write things down; use the internet as a tool for education more than entertainment. Then we recall what Prof. Kwapong first African Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana (1966 to 1975) told graduating students: “You have come here to learn …. As you leave the campus you will be on your own… Go and improve your skills …read more and more…”
The School-Feeding Programme initiated in 2005 as a joint effort by the government, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Dutch government may be tottering: GH¢ 0.97 per student per day! And the caterers would be treated as unwelcome guests by a Regional Minister when they demand payment for their outstanding indebtedness to food suppliers. Any incentive for writers, authors?
Text books, past questions, passing examinations, and Akrokerri College of Education will tell you: “Non scolae, sed vitae” (Not for school but for life). To hell with your authorship of supplementary readers… to hell with your English books… to hell with “Nowhere Cool”, the loaded laptop is a new thing -Hurray.
AfricanusOwusuAnsah
africanusoa@gmail.com