Government is receiving some positive response from development partners to undertake initiatives in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) to close the digital skills gap.

This is evident in the quest by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation to implement the annual girls in ICT initiative in five regions this year.

Speaking to Journalists after the Mentorship session for the Ahafo regional girls in ICT, Deputy Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ama Pomaah Boateng hinted that all efforts are being made for Ghana to catch up with the digital world.

“On a daily basis, the world of technology is changing and Ghana as a country cannot continue doing things on a slow pace so we have decided to speed up matters of digital skills for our students in order to meet the growing demand globally,” she said.

She announced that the ministry decided to scale up the number of beneficiaries due to increased investment by developing partners.

“We use to do 1,000 for a year but this year, we’re training 5,000 students nationwide and about 500 teachers because our agencies and development partners are ready and willing to help so we could expand the scope although we cannot do all as planned”.

Ms. Boateng stated that there have been a corresponding increase in the number of participants, urging government to seek additional investment to benefit women across the country.

“Many people are developing the interest as we move on hence the need to catch up so we could cover most areas including adult males as well” she told Journalists.

As part of the initiative, 1,000 girls and 100 teachers from the Ahafo region are benefiting from ICT training in Coding, Programming and among others. This sums up to 3,000 girls and 300 teachers benefiting from the programme so far in 2022.

The next stop for the Ministry is the Savannah region where it is hoping to train another 1000 girls and 100 teachers.