Afrikids Ghana, a child centered non-governmental organization headquartered in the Upper East Region is worried about what it has described as a decline in the quality of education especially at the basic level. To help augment the efforts of stakeholders in the education sector in their bid to improve education outcomes, Afrikids on Friday October 1, 2021 launched a pilot of the Novel Digitalization project.
The project places emphasis on how actors in the education sector can leverage on existing technology to improve learning and make learners part of the changing world of technology. For many learners in government basic schools especially rural areas, access to computers and other technological gadgets remains but a wish.
The Novel Digitalization Project is being piloted in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region in partnership with Imagine Worldwide and has seen Afrikids supply educational kids tablets to four schools with Balungu Primary receiving 41, Takano Primary, 64, Salvation Army Primary, 51 and Tongo primary, 44.
The piloting will benefit three other schools as the organization hopes to extend the gesture to its operational areas. The tablets contain both numeracy and literacy learning materials and will afford children the opportunity to have hands on learning materials using technological gadgets.
Speaking at the launch of the project at the Tongo Primary School, Country Director of Afrikids Ghana, David Pwalua, expressed worry about how the spread of the Corona Virus Disease adversely affected education.
He said the project seeks to improve learning outcomes in numeracy and literacy in the beneficiary schools.
He added that the second phase will see Awaradoone, St. Thomas and St. Martins primary schools benefit.
“Research conducted by UNICEF showed that children who did not have books or access to reading materials while at home had learning lost equivalent to 100% of previous learning gained. This and other factors are the reasons Afrikids decided to undertake a thorough investigation across the globe towards finding an innovative approach to improving quality of education in our communities.
The goal of the project is to improve learning outcomes in numeracy and literacy in 7 primary schools in the Talensi District. This pilot project is to first provide us, as implementers, critical lessons on what is possible or not as we seek to scale it up after the pilot,” he explained.
On her part, Director of Education in the Talensi District, Hajia Emelia Adisa, while lauding Afrikids and its partners (Imagine Worldwide) for rolling out the project and further training teachers to handle and deliver the lessons, also urged them to extend the initiative to other equally deprived schools.
