Accra, April 12, GNA - Effective utilisation of computers in schools would help to introduce the desired changes in teaching and learning methods, Mrs Angelina Baiden Amissah, Deputy Education and Sports Minister in-charge of Basic and Teacher Education, said on Wednesday.

She said more than 60 per cent of the public secondary schools had computer laboratories with between three to hundred computers but unfortunately most of the computers were not being used to enrich teaching and learning.

Mrs Amissah said this when she opened the UNESCO Associated Schools Computer Project (ASPnet) ICT Centre and teachers workshop at the Osu Home School in Accra.

ASPnet, which has 120 member schools in Ghana and 7,956 worldwide, is a UNESCO project in which schools interconnect with foreign schools, establish international friendship and the pupils visit other pupils in other cultures with the aim of building international understanding towards building world peace.

The 90 million cedis project was sponsored by various organisations and individuals including the PTA of Osu Home School, Accra Sub Metro Education Office, the Information For All Programme and Mr Godfred Ako Nai, Former Member of Parliament for Dade Kotopon Constituency.

The Centre and the workshop are the outcome of a pledge and a later donation of 20,000 dollars by Mr Korchiro Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO as seed money to begin the project when he visited President John Agyekum Kufuor in 2004.

Mrs Amissah said the Government would soon equip basic schools with about 150,000 computers in fulfilment of Ghana's e-schools and community initiative by the Ministry of Education and Sports. She said the Microsoft Corporation had pledged 30,000 dollars for the training of Ghanaian Teachers in ICT.

Mrs Amissah noted that the Information for All Programme, which sponsored the workshop for teachers in ICT training under the ASPnet programme, was one of the main pillars towards the attainment of UNESCO's Education for All Programme.

She expressed the hope that the Centre would develop to cater for ASPnet not only at the local level but also in the West Africa Sub-Region and consolidate the cooperation with other countries. Mrs Charity Amamoo, Secretary-General of UNESCO Commission in Ghana, said UNESCO in recent times was focussing on expanding and enhancing learning opportunities through the use of ICT such as e-campuses, open and distance learning initiative, facilitating teacher networks and integrating ICT into pedagogy and classroom learning situations.

Mrs Amamoo said it was in recognition of this that the national commission sourced funds through the participation programme request - a special facility placed at the disposal of member states of UNESCO projects in the 2003-2004 biennium for computer training for 114 pupils drawn from various regions of the country. 12 April 06