No SHS student is using tablets promised by Akufo-Addo – Dr. Apaak

As part of efforts to digitise education at the senior high school level, the Nana Addo-led government, through the Ministry of Education, and the Minister of Education launched the one student, one tablet initiative in 2024. The initiative aimed at ensuring that students at the Free SHS level are offered tablets to help them in their study.

Information gathered by this portal indicates that one student and one tablet was to cost the country at least Ghs 3000 per student and a whopping 5.2 billion in the first year of the project under the SMART Schools project.

Several months on, the new Deputy Minister for Education, Dr. Clement Apaak, has revealed that the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia government could not fulfil its promise of providing tablets to Ghanaian students.

Speaking on the 2025 budget in Parliament on Monday, Dr. Apaak also stated that the previous government cannot show Ghanaians any part of the country where a smart school has been built.

READ: All SHS Students To Receive A Tablet By April – Education Minister

“Mr. Speaker, sometime in 2023, there was an announcement of the introduction of a one-student, one-tablet policy. Mr. Speaker, as I speak to you today, whereas some payments have been made for about 710,000 tablets out of ostensibly 1.3 million tablets, only 250,000 tablets have been distributed

“And even in the schools where the tablets have been distributed, not a single student in the Republic of Ghana is using any tablet. Mr. Speaker, another failed promise,”  Dr. Apaak stated.

READ: One student one tablet to cost 5.2billion in 1st year or Ghs3000 per student

In a related development, he furthered that the deputy minister also mentioned the government also initiated the one hot chocolate drink or one bar of chocolate per student per day, but the previous administration also failed to fulfil the promise.

READ: Free SHS students to receive tablets instead of laptops – Revised Promise

“Most Ghanaians will remember the now infamous promise of providing one hot chocolate drink or one bar of chocolate to our students in the public school system. Mr. Speaker, if that has happened, it may have been yesterday—another broken promise”, Dr. Apaak stated.