Accra, March 13, GNA- The Northern Ghana Aid (NOGAID) a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has presented 200 computers, valued at 700 million cedis to four senior secondary schools and two partners organisations in the Northern and Upper West regions at a ceremony in Accra.

The beneficiaries of NOGAID Computer Literacy Project are: Ghana Secondary School, Pong-Tamale Senior Secondary School and Tamale Business Secondary School in the Northern Region and Jirapa Senior Secondary School in the Upper West Region.

Mr Mustapha Sanah, Chairman of NOGAID who presented the computers said the two other organisations that benefited from the project were the Community Action for Development and A.S Foundation.

He said Muslim AID, a British-based international charity organisation was supporting the project, which is the humble contribution of the NGO towards the use of ICT to facilitate teaching and learning in Ghana.

Each of the beneficiary schools received a minimum of 40 computers and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NOGAID to ensure the sustainable and cost effective use of the computers. All the beneficiary schools and organisations would also pay five per cent of the project cost.

Mr Sanah said literacy rate and school attendance in Ghana were very low especially in the rural areas, in the three northern regions, adding that:" The cold statistics are there for verification."

"The quality of education and the levels of participation are a major factor of poverty and directly affect the prospects of economic growth and development," he said.

Mr Sanah said the importance of education and in particular basic education was recognised by the UN, leading to the second Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which called for universal primary education by 2015.

Ghana he said had gone a long way to meet the global target of ensuring that all children of school going age received primary education.

"This is very important because education is the wheel that can carry all the goals of the global development blue print to the desired destination."

Mr Sanah expressed the hope that the computers would help bridge the digital divide between Ghana and the industrialised world. He said the ICT revolution was providing a great opportunity for developing economies to leap-frog to an ICT-based economy. The NOGAID Chairman said ICT would facilitate one of the convenient and reliable means of education especially through the use of the Internet to access information.

Mr Abukari Iddrisu Aloma, Headmaster of Pong-Tamale Senior Secondary School, on behalf of the beneficiary schools and organisations thanked NOGAID and Muslim Aid for the kind gesture and stressed the need for other public-spirited organisations to help provide ICT education to the country's deprived schools to make graduates competitive on the job market.

Over the past eight years NOGAID has implemented a number of projects including youth development; Child Rights Advocacy; Income Generation, and donated money and various items to a number of institutions like Tamale Teaching Hospital. NOGAID would soon launch a multi-million cedi five - year development programme aimed at combating poverty, hunger and illiteracy in Jirapa Lambussie, Saboba Chereponi, Talensi Nabdan, Karaga districts and Tamale Metropolis and the North as a whole. 13 March 06