TEACHING OF ICT IN TRAINING COLLEGES POOR (PAGE 11, JULY 28, 2010)

AN Information Communication Technology (ICT) tutor at the St. Charles Senior High School in Tamale, Mr Raphael McClure Adomey has observed that part of the problem why some school children perform poorly in ICT is because teachers are themselves not conversant with ICT.
According to him, the teaching of ICT at the training colleges is very poor and this has resulted in the churning out of teachers who have very little skills in ICT and can therefore not influence positively on their children.
The ICT tutor made this assertion in Tamale at an ICT forum organised by the Savana Signatures, a non-governmental organisation that works to promote the use of ICT among the youth and women.
The forum, which brought together students, pupils and teachers from schools in the three Northern Regions, sought to create a platform for participants to discuss how to mainstream ICT effectively into education in the region.
Mr Adomey, who was delivering a presentation on “ICT and Teacher Training Colleges in Ghana,” noted that the teaching of ICT at the training colleges was below par and cited several reasons to back his claim.
“There are no syllabi to guide ICT training, the time frame for the course is also inadequate and most of the training is theory-based,” he enumerated.
The instructor also noted that the there were not adequate lecturers to handle ICT at the training colleges, adding that the computer laboratories were poorly resourced and in deplorable conditions.
He again revealed that a lot of training institutions did not have budgets to finance the teaching of ICT, adding that they depend largely on donor support for the supply of computers and other accessories.
The unreliable internet access in these institutions, he noted, was also impeding the use of the worldwide web for lessons.
Mr Adomey said there was the need for a proper syllabus on the teaching of ICT to be formulated for training institutions and stressed that the course content must be expanded to include many areas, including lessons on simple computer maintenance and the use of multimedia.
“Teachers also need to be introduced to teaching-enhanced software that can enable them to improve upon their methodology of teaching and also get their pupils or students to familiarise with these software programmes,” he further recommended.
The ICT instructor also observed that another reason why some children, particularly those in deprived communities, perform poorly in ICT was because they had nurtured some phobia for the computer.
“They think the computer is not meant for them and they see it as a device they do not have to touch,” he lamented.
Mr Adomey noted that students who feared the computer needed to be psyched gradually to see the device as a tool for learning.
“This is a cultural problem that can easily be surmounted if teachers are willing to use persuasion to encourage their students and pupils who have this phobia to appreciate the device,” he stated.
The team leader of Savana Signatures, Mr Agbenyo John Stephen revealed that a research conducted by his organisation together with IFID, showed that 55 per cent of students interviewed backed calls for ICT to be made un-examinable.
Among the reasons given by the students, he noted, were that the computers were not available for studies, other learning materials were also absent and there were not enough teachers to handle the subject.