Executive Director of Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Ghana, an education NGO, has called on stakeholders involved in teaching and learning to make a conscious effort to integrate Technology into their activities.

Mr. Kofi Essien said the delivery of quality education in basic schools can be cost effective if stakeholders in the sector embrace technological devices such as the Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi is a credit-card-size computer built on a single circuit board with microprocessors, memory and other features required of a functional computer.

Unlike a typical personal computer the device may not include slots into which accessory cards may be plugged. It can plug into a computer or TV.

It is therefore like a small PC which can be used for many of the things that desktop PC does.

Kofi Essien

Mr. Essien observed that the key role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play in widening access to, and improving the quality of education at all levels in Ghana include literacy education, facilitating education delivery and training at all levels, opening opportunities for content creation and open sharing to expand knowledge resources continues to be recognized as a key priority area.

He noted that since OLE Ghana’s discovery of the potential of the Raspberry Pi to support quality education delivery for all, it has been championing the use of the technology placing it at the center of its learning model.

He disclosed that OLE Ghana as part of the USAID sponsored Ghana Reads project hopes to create a mesh network of low cost digital libraries using the Raspberry Pi to be updated by either Coaches who will provide support to teachers even as they use the technology in their classrooms and/or via internet where it is present.

Mr. Essien bemoaned that the deployment, exploitation and development of ICTs to accelerate education worldwide has been bedeviled by a number of challenges including infrastructure and costs thus mitigating the potential use of technology to achieve educational gains.

“However with the very low cost of the Raspberry Pi OLE Ghana is leading the charge to democratize access to a wealth of information making the dream of a library for every home a reality thus giving true meaning to the term Information age.

“It is also worth mentioning that for Ghana to make any appreciable progress in its socio-economic development efforts, substantial resources will need to be directed at improving educational delivery. Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights” he said.

OLE is an NGO made up of a group of Social Entrepreneurs, largely educationists.

Led by Prof. Jophus Anamuah Mensah (OVC), a seasoned educationist, it began to experiment with the use of mobile technology for education delivery in 2010.