Chapter 7: Summary, conclusion, and recommendations
3.2 Brief history and overview of the Internet
3.2.2 Internet and Education in Ghana
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days are able to use a computer and the Internet with majority of them using social media platforms for the sharing of information or thoughts among themselves. Instructors have also incorporated the use of the Internet and social media to get in touch with their learners by sharing information and delivering instructions through the technology (Jain, 2016:770).
The current study understands that, the employment of the Internet and other ICTs in education is widespread and are continually and generally regarded as tools that empower instructors and learners to make significant contributions in teaching and learning. This depicts that, learners’
achievements and improvement in learning could be linked to the effective development and integration of ICTs in their educational career (Meenakshi, 2013:3).
UNESCO (2014:59) has outlined six strategies that provide enabling conditions for effective implementation of ICTs to contribute to educational development:
• The creation of holistic learning environments;
• Capacity-building and empowerment of students and teachers to use technology in meaningful ways;
• Content and curriculum development to facilitate the integration of ICTs;
• Assessment of authentic learning;
• Addressing the gender gap; and
• Exploiting emerging opportunities such as mobile learning.
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development and integration of ICT in Ghana’s education is offering teachers and learners the essential tools to help them succeed in teaching and learning (Appiahene, Kesse and Ninfaakang, 2016:22).
Ghana was the first country in sub-sahara Africa to open-up its telecommunication sector resulting in increased growth of ICT infrastructure; and Ghana has over the years made much progress in putting in place measures to accommodate the usage of Internet and other ICTs in the education sector (Opoku, Badu and Alupo, 2016:185). There have been a number of policies and programmes formulations in Ghana towards the making of ICT education accessible to all students because of successive government’s recognition of the important role ICT plays in education (Sekyi, 2012).
The current policies of ICT usage in education put in place by the government of Ghana aim at employing the Internet and other ICTs towards socio-economic development (Tamakloe, 2014).
The ICT competence development in Ghana was therefore planned both as an ICT subject, and as an integral component taught in all subject disciplines (Quaicoe, Pata, and Jeladze, 2016:4889).
The Internet and other ICTs play an important role in development and maintenance of a country’s economic growth and Ghana is currently changing the old system of classroom teaching and learning through the development and integration of ICT in its educational system thereby making learners in Ghana become more technology oriented (Appiahene, Kesse and Ninfaakang, 2016:23). The integration of ICT into teaching and learning is seen as a priority by many governments and educational institutions in Ghana (Buabeng-Andoh and Yidana, 2015:105).
The government of Ghana has over the years championed the use of the Internet and other ICTs in education for improved educational outcomes. They have outlined for example “The Education Strategic Plan (2003-2015) and (2010-2020) of the Ghana Education Service” which are geared toward identifying the role and need for ICT in the educational sector to help achieve the aims of the “Education Strategic Plan, which are carved into Access, Quality, Gender and Inclusiveness, and Education Management” (Natia and Al-hassan, 2015:114).
According to the Ministry of Education report (2003), a committee for National ICT Policy and Plan Development was set up in the year 2002 by the government of Ghana for the formulation of
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ICT policy. This committee consequently developed the Information and Communication Technology for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy which was adopted and implemented by the government of Ghana. The policy outlined the plans and strategies in a framework of how ICTs can be used to facilitate the national goal of “transforming Ghana into an information and knowledge-driven ICT literate nation” (ICT4AD, 2003). This policy provided the basis for Ghana’s vision for the information age and was part of the “Government of Ghana’s commitment for a comprehensive programme of rapid deployment, utilisation, and exploitation of ICTs within educational sector and other sectors in the country” (Buabeng-Andoh and Yidana, 2015:105).
The objective of the policy was to improve human technical expertise and the training of instructors and experts in the use of the Internet and other ICTs in education. The policy takes into consideration the provision of key socio-economic development frameworks which are contained in Ghana's Vision 2020. The ICT4AD policy also outlined 14 cardinal pillars and the promotion of ICT in education was the second pillar, which projected “the deployment and exploitation of ICTs in education” as a priority and the focus was on prioritising training, research and generation of resources for expansion of ICTs (Natia and Al-hassan, 2015:114). The Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Education in furtherance to the ICT4AD policy, on the basis of promoting ICT in education, set up a committee for the review of the whole educational system to recommend ways for the integration of ICTs in Ghanaian education.
The committee worked under the theme “Meeting the challenges of education in the twenty-first century” and made recommendations on educational reforms that were technology driven. The recommendations of the committee propelled the Ministry of Education to formulate a draft policy called “ICT in Education Policy” in the year 2008. The framework of the policy prescribed how the Internet and other ICTs should be introduced and implemented in senior high schools in Ghana in order to meet the challenges of education in the global information age (MoE, 2008).
The objective of the policy was
To enable all Ghanaians including teachers and students in either the formal, informal and non-formal systems to use ICT tools and resources to develop requisite skills and
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knowledge needed to be active participants in the global knowledge economy at all times (MoE, 2008:28).
The policy proposed the introduction of ICT as both a core subject and elective subject in schools.
In addition, the policy proposed the integration of the Internet and other ICTs to support educational management as teaching tools for all subject areas as well as administrative functions (Buabeng-Andoh and Yidana, 2015:105).
The Ministry of Education as a way of examining and establishing “the extent to which ICTs are being exploited and deployed to facilitate education and training efforts within the country”
conducted a study in 2009 under the theme “e-Readiness Assessment of second-cycle institutions in Ghana” (MoE, 2009:22). The study revealed that there existed inadequate ICT infrastructure such as lack of computers and Internet access in most of the senior high schools across Ghana;
hence the need for measures to be taken in addressing them. The level of computer literacy as revealed by the survey was also low in the country and was identified as a major factor limiting the use of the Internet and other ICTs in education.
Similarly, the Basic School Computerisation policy was launched in the year 2011 by the government of Ghana through the Ministry of Education for the introduction of computers and e- learning into the entire education system. The Ministry of Education in 2012 therefore through a partnership with an ICT company in Ghana, ‘rLG' introduced the “teacher laptop and ICT project”
where teachers were trained in ICT and equipped with laptops to help in research, teaching and learning across a variety of subject areas (Natia and Al-hassan, 2015:114). These policies by the government of Ghana have helped in the development and integration of the Internet and other ICTs in the educational system of Ghana.
In addition to making the teaching and learning of ICT a compulsory subject across all levels of education in Ghana, there also exist national programmes that have been created to integrate ICT into teaching and learning especially in the universities to mitigate problems resulting from the large enrolment of students at that level (Sarfo and Ansong-Gyimah, 2010). Sekyi (2012) maintained that, the speed with which ICT is developing in the educational sector of Ghana and its impact on socio-economic activities cannot be overemphasised. The Internet and other ICTs
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are driving national development efforts globally and Ghana is exploring ways of facilitating their development process through the development, deployment and the exploitation of ICTs in its educational system (Buabeng-Andoh and Yidana, 2014:1282).
The integration of the Internet and other ICTs in Ghana's educational system is not without issues since lack of access to appropriate technologies exists in most places and in most schools, thereby hampering the effective use of the Internet and other technologies by teachers and learners for teaching and learning (Appiahene, Kesse and Ninfaakang, 2016:23). Schools in Ghana are provided with digital service opportunities, such as electricity, free ICT skills training for teachers and free ICT tools and infrastructure for schools, but in reality, not all of these services are available in all the schools in the country. For example, some schools are yet to have Internet access and some teachers are not yet trained for ICT skills (Quaicoe, Pata, and Jeladze, 2016:4889).
The Government of Ghana recognises the need for ICT in education; however, the state of ICT infrastructure and tools in the educational sector of Ghana are not encouraging as access to Internet and other ICTs are below standard making it difficult for the effective use of the Internet for teaching and learning; This is because “many of the schools especially do not have ICT tools and equipment and the few schools with ICT tools and equipment complained of inadequacy” (Natia and Al-hassan, 2015:122).
In Ghana, studies have shown that, teachers’ access to ICT tools is better as compared to learners (Quaicoe, Pata, and Jeladze, 2016; Natia and Al-hassan, 2015). This could probably be due to computers made available to teachers who are pursuing distance education and the distribution of laptops to teachers by the Ministry of Education through the “teacher laptop and ICT Project”.
Although, teachers’ access to ICT tools such as computers are encouraging, it has been revealed that, their ability to use them for teaching is weak; thus, the ability and capacity of teachers to effectively perform through the use of the Internet and other ICTs is low due to lack of regular training and poor Internet access (Natia and Al-hassan, 2015:123).
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