Dr. Bawumia’s 1.3 million tablets for SHS students will cost at least $65M

Vice President Dr. Bawumia who couldn’t supply 280K laptops to teachers is promising 1.3M tablets for SHS students valued at $65 million?

Africa Education Watch has questioned Vice President Bawumia’s promise to supply all SHS students with Free tablets loaded with learning materials.

The Vice President led the launching of the one-teacher-one laptop project and per the MoU signed in Nov 2020, 280k laptops were to be supplied to teachers in one year.

However, over two years into the policy, there are still many teachers who have paid for the laptops through deductions made against their salaries, but these teachers are yet to receive their laptops out of the 280,000 which were expected to be distributed.

The failure of the government to effectively and efficiently manage the procurement and distribution of the 280k laptops to teachers and the many who are yet to receive them over two years question the credibility of the government, and the Vice president’s ability to deliver on his promise to supply tablets to Free SHS students across the country in 2023.

Mr. Kofi Asare reacting to the promise made by Vice President Bawumia, twitted that “Per MoU signed in Nov 2020, 280k laptops were to be supplied to teachers in one year. By Jan 2023, two years after signing MoU, many teachers do not have their laptops; Yet, we are promising 1.3 million tablets for SHS students in 2023.”

The promise looks more like political talk that should not be taken seriously. The Vice President promised 1.3 million tablets for SHS students in 2023. Is the investment worth it at this time?

Coming events cast their shadows. Today, the country is broke and could be described as a Bankrupt nation that is seeking to cage the hard-earned investments of individual bondholders to survive and float ashore.

Textbooks for basic schools are still not fully supplied after three years of introducing a new curriculum, per the IMF bailout agreement reached so far, the government is to freeze employment in public institutions.

Questions have also been asked as to where the Vice President will source financing for the full cost of these tablets when even a subsidized supply of the 280k to teachers has not been completed.

Mathematically, we estimate that it will take approximately 4.64 times the cost of the 280,000 teachers’ laptops to provide 1.3 million student tablets if the prices of the two gadgets are the same.

Our independent checks for the prices of students’ tablets revealed that this project will cost at least $64 million.

Checks by Ghanaeducation.org from Amazon.com showed that the cheapest student tablet on the open market is by Wacom costs $50.00 per one followed by another costing $130.

This means the minimum cost of 1.3 million tablets for Free SHS students would range between ($50 x 1,300,000) $65,000,000 and ($130 x 1,300,000)  $169,000,000.

If we as a nation can raise any additional resources between  $65,000,000 and $169,000,000, we will do public basic schools a lot of good by investing this money in their refurbishment and transformation to give learners and teachers a befitting school environment across the country, especially in deprived communities.

This money can transform the face of public basic schools, many of which have become death traps and do not have the needed resources for effective teaching and learning.

This government must begin to set its priorities right and Dr. Bawumia who wants to become the president of Ghana must begin to consider the basics and the needful in improving education in this country at the basic level.

The foundation pillars of Ghana’s education are in danger since the government has continued to neglect the development of basic schools. The focus has been on wasteful and avoidable spending on the Free SHS policy. How can we continue to invest so much in structures built on a weak foundation?

READ: Fair Wages And Teacher Unions To Review Teachers Conditions Of Service

There are several public basic schools that do not have desktop computers to help the learners do the practical aspects of their ICT lessons in schools, yet we are going to buy these same students tablets when they get to SHS.

Vice President Bawumia needs to rethink this whole idea of wasteful spending and redirect energy and resources to the development of ICT education in basic schools and provide teachers with outstanding laptops.

Source: Wisdom Hammond