Deputy Director of Educate Africa Institute, Wisdom Matey has described the replacement of textbooks with laptops as a premature move towards improving education.
He made the comments in response to the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s revelation of the replacement of textbooks with laptops to enable students gain access to past questions and lesson plans in Senior High Schools.
The Vice President had announced that the initiative will be set into motion by the end of the year.
Speaking to UniversNews, Mr. Matey expressed uncertainty with the implementation of the initiative. According to him, the replacement of textbooks with laptops cannot be assured after the ‘one teacher one laptop’ was not fully implemented as promised.
“In his speech, he made it clear that, the one teacher one laptop initiative has been delivered and per where I stand, it’s not true. How then can it be assured that the move to replace textbooks with laptops will be effective? It is a premature move. ”
Wisdom Matey noted that the resources and digital tools on the laptops given to teachers were based on only primary educational syllabus and Curriculum, hence the policy was not fully implemented.
“The laptops that were given to the teachers only have resources for the primary level. The resources on the TM1 laptop are resources for the primary level; nothing of Senior High School, nothing of Junior High School were uploaded on the machine. All the curriculum, materials, everything on the computer is for the primary level.”
As he concluded, he added that, government is focused on building political parties rather than building institutions that will hold the integrity of the country.
“In this country, [the government] is rather building political parties rather than building institutions that will hold the integrity of the country; that will drive the country to a pedestal that one can say that indeed Ghana is developing; but nothing of that sort [is happening].”
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Story by|Gabriel Tecco Mensah |univers.ug.edu.gh
