Rachel’s Visit to Ghana: A Journey to Kpando
I’m driving down a long stretch of red dusty road, going from town to town on a road flanked by enormous trees. In the distance I see the peaks of the greenest mountains in a haze of fog. I know I'm back home as we pass by mothers with their babies wrapped to their backs and women at their stalls selling every type of in-season fruit you can imagine. There are many beautiful things about travelling across Ghana, but seeing the contrast to city life always warms my heart.
Rachel and Mr A Norvinyo heading towards Kpando High School
I’m four hours North of Ghana’s capital city, Accra, on my way to a more peri-rural part of the country, a town called Kpando located in the Volta Region.
As I stepped onto the Kpando High School grounds, I was immediately struck by the vastness of the campus and the gentle hum of activity as classes were already in session. The multi block campus reminded me of my old University campus. The School services 3,000 students and 200 teachers, one of the few schools in the area implementing the Free Senior High School (SHS) Initiative introduced by the Government of Ghana.
The bold policy states that: “Every child in Ghana who qualifies , and is placed in a public Senior High School for secondary education will have his/her fees absorbed by the government.”
This speaks to a strong commitment by the Ministry of Education to provide quality and equitable education to every school child in Ghana, by removing cost barriers and providing supplementary learning materials for free.
Kpando High School Grounds
As part of this effort, the Ghana Education Service (GES) highlighted the importance of digital technologies like computers and Wi-fi to access online teaching platforms and resources with the goal of improving how students are taught.
In spite of the effort to improve connectivity infrastructure in schools, the application of digital technologies for learning and teaching are still some of the major challenges facing teachers and students.
I spoke with many teachers at Kpando High School who said the GES curriculum was becoming increasingly digitally-focused and required them to access the internet more. Many of them were relying on their own devices and data to teach their classes and found it to be unsustainable.
Mr A Norvinyo, a senior lecturer at the School spoke about his experience before Jangala provided the school with a free Wi-fi device.
“If you have a laptop you’ll have to get a modem or use your phone to hotspot. The cost of internet connection is very high, it’s not easy. [especially] some of the things we need to download. Before the Big Box we spent quite a lot!”
When the school approached Jangala in 2022 their library was equipped with 60 computers. However, without consistent internet access students and teachers could not make the best use of the devices. The school was previously given three Wi-fi devices by GES but these were often not in operation or servicing the Campus' needs.
Now that Big Box has been installed teachers report they can easily connect to the internet and access the learning resources they need. The School warmly named the building where Big Box is, the Jangala Learning Centre. In front of the centre is a plot of trees that has become a place where students and teachers congregate to learn, socialise and use Jangala Wi-Fi.
I met classes of brilliant, bright eyed students that day but I will never forget how a student named Emefa eagerly approached me to present her fourth year Cyber Security presentation. She was part of a group of four who had spent months preparing for their final year assignment. They all shared aspirations to go into careers in tech and attend either the University of Legon in Accra or the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi – two of the leading universities in Ghana.
Classroom full of students at Kpando High School
The confidence and certainty these students had about their education was truly inspiring and a testament to how the school was not only providing excellent teaching but also opening them up to, and preparing them for, opportunities beyond their present community and environment.
Digital inclusion in Ghana is meaningful for many reasons, uppermost among those is the power of digital inclusion to equip Ghanaian youth to thrive in the digital age.
Initiatives like the ‘Ghana Smart Schools Project’ (2) and the ‘One Tablet, One Student’ Initiative, demonstrate a commendable national effort to enhance learning, foster innovation, boost learning outcomes and prepare Ghanaian students for the world around them. (3)
Ghana’s efforts are not confined to the classroom alone. In recent years, we've seen the Ghanaian government take significant strides towards creating an enabling environment for internet connectivity infrastructure and digital access. After last month's national internet outage, there is increased drive to fortify the country's digital infrastructure and become more digitally resilient. (4) The decision to licence Starlink to provide services in Ghana, is an example of a definite momentum towards addressing connectivity challenges for a more digitally inclusive future for all Ghanaians.
Looking ahead, Jangala has ambitious hopes for our work in Ghana. By leveraging our emerging Wifi technologies, Big Box and Get Box, we aspire to play a pivotal role in the connectivity landscape and address a direct need of the communities we work with. Building upon our existing projects and partnerships, we look forward to fostering more collaboration with national stakeholders while remaining connected to local educators and schools, to empower students like Emefa and her peers to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world.
(1) https://dailyguidenetwork.com/president-akufo-addo-launches-ghana-smart-schools-project-to-enhance-e-learning/#:~:text=The%20'Ghana%20Smart%20Schools%20Project'%20is%20a%20strategic%20move%20by,thrive%20in%20the%20digital%20age.
(2) https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/I-endorse-the-One-student-One-Tablet-initiative-1924665#google_vignette
(3) https://www.theghanareport.com/internet-cuts-and-the-call-for-digital-resilience-in-ghana/