2.4 - Status of ICT in Education and Training

Ghana is one of the first African countries to liberalise its telecommunication sector and has made tremendous progress in ICT infrastructure deployment. But like many parts of Africa access to ICT still remain highly inadequate and unevenly distributed with an urban bias. The ICT revolution has also been a mobile revolution leaving behind the internet and computing. Table 1 provides some statistics on ICT infrastructure and usage in Ghana.

Indicators	Numbers
Fixed line operators	2
Ghana Telecom	328,000
Westel	3,000
Total fixed line telephone subscribers	331,000
Cellular mobile phone operators	4
MTN	1,6000,000
Ghana Telecom	328,000
Ghana Telecom	328,000
Ghana Telecom	328,000
Ghana Telecom	328,000

The Ghanaian tertiary education sector is the most advanced in the deployment and use of ICT in the country. All the country’s major universities have their own separate ICT pol-icy, which includes an ICT levy for students. This enables students to have access to 24 hour computer laboratories with broadband connection. However, not all tertiary institu-tions in the country are equally endowed and there are instances where the computer facilities are run purely by the private sector as cyber cafes on campuses.

In the basic and secondary education sector, a project to set up computer laboratories in all science schools in the country has led to a significant number of computer laboratories across the country. A computer levy of $ 3.20 is allowed to be charged as ICT fees in most secondary schools. There is however a great disparity between public and private schools as well between urban and rural areas in their access to ICTs. In schools where ICTs exist, a number of teachers are using internet for research. Current ICT initiatives and projects in educational Institutions are summarised in Table 2.