MoE gives condition to set up a student tablet repair centre in SHS

The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum says government second-cycle schools with a population exceeding one thousand (1,000) will have a dedicated student tablet repair centre to address issues of the electronic device.

Speaking on JoyNews Newsfile, he emphasized that while gadget abuse is common when students understand that their academic success depends on the tablet, they are more diligent in using it, leading to increased carefulness.

“So you see, sometimes we underestimate the care that students give to the things that matter to them. When they know how much this matters to them they are not going to just destroy it

When they know that their homework is not going to be done if I do not take good care of this and you train them well and somebody is there to fix it for them, then there is insurance on it,” the Education Minister said on Newsfile.

Dr Yaw Adutwum disclosed that the distribution of the student mate 1 tablets to be distributed in phases or batches will commence in early April adding that 450,000 of the devices will be deployed in the first batch of the process.

“The 450,000 is a little less than 30 %, the deployment is such that it is in three phases. The first phase which is hitting the regions and schools in the next coming week, is going to 32 schools in the 16 regions.

Once it gets to the school, there is a dashboard that informs us the tablets are here. The whole idea is to ensure that you will do a phased approach to deployment and don’t get the system overwhelmed

Once we get them to the 32 schools, then within a week or two thereafter the rest which is phase two also starts moving to the schools, so it’s a phased deployment,” the Minister for Education told the host of the Newsfile show.

But the Director of Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS), Mr Enoch Gyetuah criticising the tablets policy launched by President Akufo-Addo says the policy is not in the interest of the nation but a political show-off policy.

In an interview with Onua FM monitored by Thisterm.com, the Private Schools Council Director said the project is ill-advised and wasteful as it is skewed to divert resources from addressing fundamental deficiencies within the educational system.

Expressing disappointment in the government for habitually exempting private schools from educational policies, he wondered why it would prioritize such a program in light of the prevailing challenges faced by many schools across the country.

Enoch Kwasi Gyetuah also raised questions regarding the logistics and maintenance of the students mate (SM) 1 tablets, particularly in the face of infrastructure deficits and a lack of internet connectivity in some of the schools.

“We know that these gadgets might come with an already installed programme, but how is it going to connect with other schools with network challenge? This is a political year so you could see that the policy is not a national policy but a political show-off policy,” he said.