GIFEC PRESENTS COMPUTERS TO KUMBUNGU SHS

(Daily Graphic, Oct 18, 2011, Page 33)

THE Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) has donated twenty (20) new computers and other accessories to the Kumbungu Senior High School in the Northern Region.

This is to help furnish the school’s computer laboratory and enhance the teaching and learning of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which had been ineffective due to the limited number of computers in the school.

The items were presented to the school over the weekend in Kumbungu by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni with support from some staffs of GIFEC.

The twenty new desktop computers and UPS were estimated to cost GH¢30,000.

Alhaji Mumuni, who is a former MP for the Kumbungu area, said he was elated that GIFEC had included the Kumbungu SHS as part of beneficiaries of its Schools Connectivity Project (SCP) for the year 2011, adding that it was only fair that disadvantaged communities got their share of the national cake.

He said the provision of ICT tools to educational institutions was a major priority of the government because President John Atta Mills was committed to investing in the youth.

“The defining features of the 21st century are globalisation and knowledge-based society. For the youth to participate effectively in any of these, they need skills in ICT,” Alhaji Mumuni noted.

He pledged to assist the Kumbungu SHS to construct an assembly hall complex and undertake other infrastructural developments in the school.

The headmaster of Kumbungu SHS, Mr Dan Biitr commended GIFEC and the government for breathing fresh life back into the school.

According to him, the school, which was opened in 1991, had not received the needed support for several years, thereby leaving the school in a quagmire of problems.

He said the school’s enrolment, which is currently about 500, had been limited due to the absence of classrooms and other facilities.

“The provision of boarding facilities, such as dining hall, dormitory blocks and assembly hall are very crucial if the school is to be converted into a boarding facility,” he further noted.

In a speech read on his behalf, the Technical Director of GIFEC, Mr Osman Zakaria Yahaya noted that the mandate of GIFEC had been broadened and repositioned to respond to the ICT challenges facing various sections of the Ghanaian economy.

He said GIFEC was therefore working to bridge the digital divide between the haves and have-nots, and mentioned the ongoing connectivity projects for the Prisons Service, public libraries, public schools and community information centres as some initiatives that GIFEC was pursuing to fulfil its mandate.