Ghana Government’s 1 Student-1 Tablet in SHS: A great initiative? The Africa Education Watch has asked the most critical question that needs urgent answers, thinking, and planning if we are to be proactive in dealing with the most critical problems in the education sector that demand investing the nation’s resources.
Mr. Kofi Asare of Eduwatch writes…
It is great to have tablets for all SHS students. Students can access digital content to enhance their learning experience. Eduwatch advocated for this after wifi was provided in our SHS.
Government has already provided textbooks, ibox, etc, in SHS, making the need for tablets complimentary than urgent, albeit relevant.
In 2023, government increased the free SHS budget by about 30%, but this did not cover tablets, which may cost another billion.
On the flip side, primary schools still do not have all textbooks. Contrary to government’s promise, less than 30% were supplied last year due to financial issues; And we are in year four of a new curriculum. There are schools in Krachi Nchumuru without a single textbook.
Also, less than 15% of the basic school Capitation Grant required for this academic year was budgeted. This is because the free basic education budget was cut by 40%, even as education’s share of the national budget declined to a two decade low of 12.9% due to Ghana’s debt crisis.
In such a period of austerity, why won’t government first find money to provide all needed textbooks and Capitation Grant for basic schools and purchase the tablets when the economic situation improves?
The issue is never whether or not the promise of a tablet for 1.3 million SHS students is possible, but its implications on equitable financing of pre-tertiary education in an austerity. #PayAttention!
SHS students are already enjoying free exercise books, notebooks, calculators, PE kits, school uniforms, school cloth, which are all good, but not available in basic schools. In 2015, Ghana cancelled free execrise books in basic schools and re-introduced same in SHS in 2017.
Across sub sectors and income categories, Ghana is not spending her education resources equitably. We continue to spend three times more on a SHS student compared to a basic school student, and 36 % on the richest 20% compared to 12% on the poorest 20% of learners.
According to UNICEF’s most recent (Jan 2023) report on education financing, Ghana, among other countries cannot transform her education without improving on equitable spending.
The 1 Student-1 Tablet initiative is great; but must be well timed until the austerity pressures on the sector’s resources eases.
A pilot in about 20 SHS from urban, peri-urban Ghana (with internet), and rural SHS without internet should be a great start this year. The lessons from both off and online usage should be useful in enriching a future rollout.
Kofi Asare
Eduwatch
Kasare@eduwatch.info
Twitter@KofiEducation
The Ghana Education News Editorial Team is a specialized collective of education researchers, journalists, and policy analysts dedicated to providing high-fidelity reporting on the Ghanaian academic landscape. Serving as a primary bridge between governing bodies—including the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC—and the public, the team leverages over a decade of combined experience to serve students, parents, and educators nationwide.
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The team is led by Wisdom Kojo Eli Hammond, a distinguished Ghanaian Edu-Tech Entrepreneur, AI Solutions Developer, and Product Architect with over 25 years of cross-disciplinary experience in education, finance, and digital media. Wisdom is the visionary force behind SkulManager, Ghana’s premier school management ecosystem, and the Lead Consultant at Education-News Consult.
A self-taught innovator, professional Web Designer, and regular columnist on GhanaWeb, Wisdom engineered SkulManager.com as the only platform strictly tailored to the GES Curriculum. His technical leadership has redefined educational assessment through a Hybrid Marking Ecosystem, pioneering the BECE and WASSCE Home Mock services—a unique fusion of WAEC-trained human examiners and advanced AI marking engines operational since 2022.
Wisdom’s 360-degree view of institutional challenges is grounded in his tenure as College President and Lecturer at Pinnacle College (Achimota), as well as his background as a school administrator and accountant. He is a dedicated lifelong learner currently advancing his studies at the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), with academic ties to the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).
An accomplished author, his works include Returnees of the Dead Forest (UK Published), Simplified Beacon of Light (850+ Q&A), and The Leader in Me. A foundational pillar of the award-winning NGO Human Rights Reporters Ghana (HRRG), Wisdom is committed to building intelligent systems that solve societal problems and prepare the next generation of Ghanaian students for a digital future.
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