Two hundred and thirty junior high school (JHS) students at Adomanu in the Adansi North District have benefitted from a three-day information and communication technology (ICT) skills training programme organized under the Otumfuo Mobile Learning Project.

They were each assigned a computer to learn the basics of ICT.

The project, an intervention by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, seeks to assist school children in deprived communities to use the computer and to take to reading.

Mr. Mordey Tawiah Forson, head teacher of the Adomanu D/A JHS, welcomed the programme, given the school’s lack of access to computers and said it would have helpful results.

The JHS has only five computers and even with that, they are dysfunctional – limiting the teaching and learning of ICT, an examinable subject, to just the theoretical aspect.

He appealed to the Otumfuo Charity Foundation to help supply the school with computers to sustain the interest and enthusiasm generated through the programme.

Mr. Abraham Donkor, Project Officer of the Charity Foundation, said their focus was to support students in rural deprived schools to become more comfortable with the use of computers and acquire reading skills.

He described as deeply worrying the situation where about 64 per cent of pupils at the basic level are said to be not good at reading.

That, he said, needed to change, saying the project was setting up mobile libraries to encourage children to adopt the reading habit.

Nana Asrifi Asare II, the Adomanuhene, applauded the Asantehene and the wife, Lady Julia, for the project.