Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the UNIWIZ Foundation, Wisdom Larry Quarme-Doe, has said providing ICT centres for schools without equipping teachers with the skills to use them effectively could limit their impact on digital learning.

He said this is why the foundation has introduced an Advanced Digital Skills Training programme for Ghana Education Service (GES) ICT coordinators, beginning with the Greater Accra Region.

Speaking on the sidelines of the two-day training for ICT coordinators, held on August 6 and7, at the Methodist University, Mr Quarme-Doe said the initiative is intended to complement the foundation's efforts to provide ICT centres for schools by strengthening the capacity of educators responsible for digital learning.

"The UNIWIZ Foundation, which is known for its National Juniors Challenge quiz programme for junior high schools, has also begun constructing ICT centres for schools across the country."

Mr Quarme-Doe said the provision of ICT facilities must be accompanied by investment in the skills of teachers responsible for helping pupils acquire digital skills.

"If we are providing these e-libraries or ICT centres for schools to ensure or promote digital literacy, then it is very important that the people who are making sure that these children or students acquire these skills or education in digital literacy are also enhanced to propagate that initiative."

He said this need informed the decision to introduce the advanced digital skills training for ICT coordinators.

"It is very important that we came up with this particular initiative where we want to train the IT coordinators. We are starting with Greater Accra Region."

According to Mr Quarme-Doe, the training seeks to equip ICT coordinators with skills that will improve the delivery of ICT education in classrooms.

"The basic reason why we are doing this is to empower those people who are taking care of our children in the schools as far as IT or ICT education is concerned to acquire some level of skills that would encourage or enhance the work they are doing in the classrooms."

He expressed appreciation to the Embassy of Switzerland in Ghana for supporting the training, saying the partnership would help more ICT facilitators develop skills relevant to their work.

Although the current programme is focused on Greater Accra, Mr Quarme-Doe said the foundation plans to take the training to other regions.

He said the Greater Accra programme is the second edition, following an earlier training held in March.

"This is the second edition for Greater Accra Region. We are looking at spanning this to other regions. Hopefully, we'll be in the Ashanti Region, we'll be in the Eastern Region and all other regions."

He said the foundation would work with GES to extend the programme to other parts of the country.

"We want to promote digital education and we will be spanning this programme to other parts of the country by the work of GES."

Mr Quarme-Doe said the need to strengthen digital education was becoming more important as technology increasingly shaped education and other aspects of everyday life.

"We are in a world where you cannot do away with digital education. Everything is now IT."

He said the foundation's involvement in the National Juniors Challenge had also given it access to schools across the country, helping it identify gaps in ICT infrastructure.

"Per National Juniors Challenge we organise, we have access to a lot more schools in the country and from our checks, we realise that a lot of schools do not have ICT centres."

He noted that ICT is one of the subjects covered by the National Juniors Challenge, making access to facilities for practical learning particularly important.

"ICT is actually even part of one of the subjects for the National Juniors Challenge. And so how do we get to that programme? How do we ameliorate this? That is why we introduced the e-libraries, which is actually an ICT centre where these children get hands-on IT training."

Mr Quarme-Doe said combining the provision of ICT centres with training for educators would help ensure that pupils become the direct beneficiaries of the initiative.

"We believe that the initiative we have introduced and the training we are giving to the educators or their facilitators, in other words, the coordinators, would go a long way to eventually impact the children who are going to be the direct beneficiaries of these ICT centres we are setting up."

The two-day training brought together ICT coordinators from districts across the Greater Accra Region, with the foundation expected to extend the initiative to other regions as part of its efforts to strengthen digital education in schools.