The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) is calling on government to fast- track the provision of ICT facilities in basic schools. GNAT President Pual Asamanaba Apanga said though the government is doing its best, it is just not enough for ICT to be introduced to the school curricula without the requisite facilities. Speaking at a news conference in Accra on Wednesday, Mr Apanga said government must ensure senior high schools especially have ICT facilities at their disposal. The GNAT president also indicated that some teachers in the country have little knowledge of ICT; a situation he said does not augur well for the country’s future. The General Secretary of GNAT, Irene Duncan Adenusa, also said government must move quickly to provide computers and other facilities for ICT training. “How can you implement an ICT policy without the needed equipment in the schools…? If you have schools that have no electricity, no proper school buildings, how do you implement a national ICT policy?” she asked. ICT was introduced into the school curriculum two years ago with the West African Examination Council designing programmes for it. The teachers said although they are trying to cover that aspect of the curriculum, it is becoming more difficult for them now as facilities are either inadequate or non-existent. For now a select number of schools are teaching the subject but even for these schools, there are calls for WAEC not to make ICT a compulsory examinable subject. “…you cannot make it a compulsory subject, you have to phase it out as it comes out,” Mrs Adenusa told Joy News. The main idea of introducing ICT in schools was to increase the ICT awareness of the Ghanaian school-goer and to make Ghanaians, in the long run, appreciate the need to use ICT to solve problems. This culminated in the introduction of the One Laptop Per Child Project which is currently being piloted across the country. According to sources at the Education Ministry, a few thousands of the laptops have been given out but children in deprived communities without electricity have yet to be covered. Source: Myjoyonline.com/Ghana