The Education Ministry has announced plans to roll out the free tablets for Senior High School students in the next two weeks starting with the Opoku Ware School in Kumasi.

The initiative launched in March aims at providing teaching and learning management, digital learning content and electronic devices to all senior high and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) schools nationwide.

Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has announced that Opoku Ware School in Kumasi will be the first to commence implementation of the policy while enumerating the benefits.

“Opoku Ware is going to be the first Senior High School converted to a smart school. Within two weeks we are going to launch Opoku Ware smart school program”, he emphasized.

The government in rolling out the Smart School Project under the Free Senior High School policy is targeting the distribution of 1.3 million tablets to learners.

According to the Ministry of Education, the tablets will have a four-inch screen, four gigabytes of RAM, and a battery that lasts for seven to eight hours.

It will come along with a solar-based battery pack, it is water-resistant and would have a quad-core two processor.

In the first phase of implementation, the chosen school will be equipped with ten smart boards aside from other resources to facilitate the program implementation.

“We are going to improve internet connectivity to your school. We are also looking at solar panels on your buildings. At least about ten classrooms will have smart boards, eventually, when you become a smart school fully, it means all other classes will have a smart board”, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum again.

Under the initiative, other learners on the platform will be given the opportunity to log into classes of model schools to participate in the classes.

Assignments and class works will be done on the system and marked by artificial intelligence.

Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum explains, “not everything will be online but with time, the home, all class activities and others will be online.”

To facilitate the digitalized learning environment, Ghana Knowledge and Skills Bank has already created room for the digitalisation of textbooks.

“The bank is going to have all the textbooks you will need. We are digitalizing the textbooks. If you are reading a textbook and it mentions the Egyptian pyramid, there will be a hyperlink and when you click on it, it will take you to Egypt to see the pyramid”, he added.

The Education Minister who paid a surprise visit to the Opoku Ware School was impressed with the performance of the school’s orchestra.

A donation of one hundred thousand cedis was made to the orchestra.