The Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has said that the history of how the introduction of laptops into the country’s educational system should be something that should guide the current government.

He stressed that it is clear from the experience from the past, when RLG Communications Limited went into a partnership with the government to provide some laptops to students in the country, that there has always been a problem with gadgets in that regard, in the country.

He said that it is so because of the approach of governments towards these programs, which is handling them like they are merely a procurement activity.

“We all know what happened in this country some time ago – about 10 years ago, the government said they were procuring laptops for students, under an arrangement with RLG, we know how it ended.

“We’ve always had issues with laptops and gadgets because government’s posture towards such programs have been seeing them as a procurement activity and not an intervention. That is the experience from RLG,” he stated.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on the topic, “CSOs position on government’s plan to procure laptops to replace textbooks in SHSs,” Kofi Asare stressed the point that laptops can never replace textbooks.

He added that, in reference to plans by the government to procure some 1.3 million laptops from senior high schools in the country, it should not be done as though to completely replace printed textbooks with these gadgets.

“Textbooks can never be replaced with e-textbooks. A laptop can never take the place of a printed textbook. It has never been so in any country, and it will never work in Ghana. And so, if government has any plans to introduce laptops, it should be within a different context, at a different time, where it probably will be a complement to printed textbooks, but textbooks on laptops i.e. e-textbooks, can never replace printed textbooks,” he added.



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AE/WA