Dr Edward Omane-Boamah, Minister for Communication, on Wednesday said government has planned to upgrade the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to tertiary status, to help speed up the nation’s socio-economic development.

He said according to experts, there would be two million more ICT jobs available than ICT professionals all over the world in the next decades.

“For this reason, we need to empower our school girls and young women alongside the young men to take up such job opportunities that ICT was creating,” he said.

Dr Omane-Boamah made the remarks in Accra during a “Girls in ICT” Marathon training programme for 160 school children drawn from sixteen basic schools in Accra.

It was under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service; on the theme: “Mainstreaming Girls in ICT – the critical missing link for development.

The Minister said there was the need for women to take up careers in ICT and this objective could only be accomplished if girls were encouraged to pursue courses in ICT.”

He said Ghana has a very low number of female ICT professionals, which explained why the “Girls in ICT” programmes were being organised to encourage and support girls to go into ICT.

He said ICT offers great job opportunities and there was the need to do everything possible to motivate girls and young women to pursue careers in ICT.

Dr Omane-Boamah said: “technology needs girls” and for this reason the Ministry would continuously support ICT education and skills acquisition for them.

He urged the participants to share the knowledge they had gained with their colleagues back at home and school.

Dr Dorothy Gordon, Director General of the Kofi Annan Centre of ICT, asked the participants not to allow anyone to intimidate them because of their gender; but rather explore their God given potentials.