The vice president of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has announced that he will implement one student one laptop for Tertiary Students.
Speaking at a press conference organised by Bawumia’s campaign team on Tuesday, Dennis Miracles Above, director of communications for Bawumia’s campaign team announced that all tertiary students will be given laptops with 70% discount on the cost of the laptop. The 30% will be paid in a period of 4 years. He added that there will be no interest rate charges on the laptop.
This comes few weeks after government launched free tablets for Senior High School (SHS) students.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education (MoE), Kwasi Kwarteng, this initiative is part of the Ghana Smart Schools Project.
The project aims to provide teaching and learning management systems, digital learning content, and electronic devices to all senior high and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) schools nationwide.
Mr. Kwarteng said all 503 public SHS and TVET institutions would benefit from the project. He clarified that, the distribution would be done in phases, with each phase covering 30 schools until students in all schools get their laptops.
READ ALSO: One Student One Tablet Turned Into Tablets For Only Some Students – Clement Apaak Writes
Mr. Kwarteng mentioned that, this process would take more than a year to complete.
“This kind of project is national in scope and requires careful implementation. A significant amount of stakeholder engagement has been undertaken, and it’s a collaborative effort involving the private sector, public industry, and academia. The Ghana Education Service (GES), which oversees the SHS and TVET programs, is also involved,” he added.
Mr. Kwarteng said the tablets have four-inch screen, four gigabytes of RAM, and a battery life of seven to eight hours, along with a solar-based battery pack.
The tablets are water-resistant and equipped with a quad-core 2 processor. To him, these devices would supplement textbooks and prepare students to use digital tools effectively.
The PRO mentioned that, the tablets are already in the country, and the next step would be distributing them to GES and TVET stores in various districts for further distribution.
Under the One Student, One Tablet initiative, Mr. Kwarteng assured that students would not have to endure undue stress. He stated that, approximately 450,000 tablets would be distributed in phases, with distribution scheduled to begin from now until September, based on the distribution calendar provided by the FREE SHS Secretariat.
