The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation (MoCD), in collaboration with the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) and The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE), has successfully climaxed its Girls-in-ICT (GIICT) training programme.
The Climax ceremony of the 10-day programme was held at the University of Ghana’s Cedi Conference Centre on Wednesday, 10th July, 2024. It was supported by MTN, the National Communications Authority (NCA), ATC Ghana, GES, GIZ, and Kodris Africa
The ceremony, led by the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, also saw key female stakeholders in the technology industry, including the CEO of Dimensions Data Solutions, Yvette Adounvo, Telecel’s Juliana Jones Amertorwogo, and the Executive Director of the Data Protection Commission, Patricia Adusei-Poku, in attendance.
The ceremony was hosted in two phases, the first being an award session which saw laptops and other prizes awarded to the top 100 girls out of the 1,000 who participated in the Greater Accra Regional GIICT competition. The top 10 girls received laptops, and the promise that their schools will be furnished with ICT centres, while the top three girls received laptops and cash prizes ranging from 2,000 cedis for 3rd place, 2,500 cedis for 2nd place and 3,000 cedis for the winner. Every girl who participated in the training received a certificate.
Addressing the girls, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful revealed plans that the Ministry was working to ensure that girls see more training in ICT. “Now, we’re building smart schools, we have STEM senior high schools, about 11 of them across the country, focused primarily on science, technology, engineering and maths immersion,” she revealed, adding that the government was committed to ensuring that even coding is taught in schools as part of the normal syllabus.
The Greater Accra GIICT programme saw 100 teachers trained alongside the 1,000 girls. It was part of an overall exercise to train 3,000 girls in the Greater Accra, Ashanti and Volta regions.
Overall, the GIICT programme has trained nearly 13,000 girls since the MoCD took over its reins in 2017. It has established 97 ICT labs, and distributed nearly 2,000 laptops to teachers and well-performing girls.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Titus Glover, who spoke at the event, urged everyone to work together to “create an enabling environment where our young women can thrive in the digital sector.” He believed that this way, Ghana would foster gender equality.
The GIICT Trust
The second phase of the ceremony saw the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation launching the Girls-in-ICT Trust, which will fund the programme and ensure that it thrives even after her term is over.
“The Trust is going to be a public-private partnership. So, donor agencies, individuals, companies, are all welcome to be trustees and to consider funding the trust so they can include it in their annual budget and we can have a sustainable stream of funding for the project,” the Ablekuma West MP stated.
She affirmed that the Trust, would provide regular reports and audits to ensure complete transparency and accountability, while also valuing the input of all stakeholders.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful also urged stakeholders to fund the Trust, to ensure that the number of girls trained annually increases from 3,000 to over 9,000. This would also ensure that the GIICT programme will be able to effectively train persons with disabilities and even extend to boys who do not have the means of acquiring ICT training.
By Derrick Kafui – Digital Economy Magazine
