Students of deprived school in Ghana get computers after ICT teacher’s viral story

A school in Ghana’s Ashanti regional capital Kumasi, Betenase M/A Junior High School has never had computers to enhance the teaching of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) education. This was despite the fact that junior high students are expected to write and pass a national exam with ICT being one of the subjects. The students of Bentenase were basically sitting for the same examinations with other students who studied with computers.

As a similar examination drew nearer, an ICT teacher in the school, Richard Appiah Akoto came out with a remedy for the students to have a feel of a non-existent computer. He drew a Microsoft word processing window on a blackboard with multi-coloured chalk to teach his students about computers.

Akoto, otherwise known as Owura Kwadwo subsequently posted photos of his ingenuity on social media platform, Facebook and this won the hearts of millions of people across the world after the photos went viral.

ICT giants, Microsoft, picked up the story and promised to send Owura Kwadwo some computers to enable him to teach effectively.

The 33-year-old teacher has since received a laptop from a benefactor at UK’s University of Leeds. He was also given a laptop for his personal use by NIIT, a computer training school in Ghana.

The other good news is the school has received a donation of five desktop computers to improve ICT education.

Microsoft also flew Akoto to Singapore this week to participate in the annual Microsoft Education Exchange.

The absence of basic learning tools like computers is not peculiar to the Betenase M/A Junior High school. Last year, an ICT teacher at Assin Asamankese D/A Primary School in the Assin South District of the Central Region made students improvise a computer mouse by using stones. A viral video showed the students clicking and double-clicking the stones on instructions by the teacher.