Opoku Ware SHS becomes first smart school with smart classroom

Opoku Ware Senior High School in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital, has become the first Smart School in the country after the Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, inaugurated a new classroom block for the school

The smart block named after His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who launched the Ghana Smart School Project (GSSP) is fitted with digital devices such as smart boards, computers and internet access to facilitate usage.

“Ghana is among few countries in the world where the government supplies students with tablet computers to ensure the future does not elude our children,” Dr Mahamudu Bawumia told students of the Opoku Ware School.

This comes after the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum early this year said the Ashanti-region-based Opoku Ware School has been selected by the government as the first Senior High School (SHS) to be converted into a Smart School.

The Minister in Charge of Education speaking to the students said the smart school initiative is a significant step by the Nana Addo-led government towards advancing e-learning and digitalisation in the country’s education system.

The project he said will provide comprehensive teaching and learning management systems and digital educational content to Senior High and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions nationwide, enhancing teaching, learning, and understanding.

“Very soon, when this school is fully converted into a Smart School, your home assignments, class tests, exams, marking, and grading will be done online, and you will get your results instantaneously

Other schools are going to be working with you. Some schools will log into your system and take advantage of your system to learn. They can log into your chemistry class and take part in it,” the Minister of Education noted.

About Ghana Smart School Project

President Akufo-Addo launched the Ghana Smart Schools Project in Accra on March 25, this year, and said existing facilities in public senior high schools were to be transformed into smart schools while new structures would be built for schools in some areas.

Under the project, students are to be given free computer tablets to facilitate learning. Teachers and staff of the Ghana Education Service would also be provided with laptops to facilitate research, teaching and learning under a separate arrangement.

A total of 1.2 million children in public senior high schools across the country are to benefit from the free gadgets. The distribution began in March this year, and many schools have already distributed the tablets to their students under different phases of the project distribution plan.

The initiative is intended to strengthen and enhance quality delivery and outcomes in the beneficiary schools. Earlier this week, the government indicated plans to introduce a law, Free SHS Act, to back the programme.