Ghana to enroll 10,000 students in first virtual high school next year, says Dr. Yaw Adutwum

Minister for Education Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has strongly indicated that Ghana will have a virtual high school from the start of the next academic year.

According to him, an initial 10,000 students nationwide will be enrolled in the Virtual Senior High School(SHS).

He made this known during the launch of the Ghana Knowledge and Skills Bank Portal on Tuesday, September 17, 2024 by the Ministry of Communications in partnership with the Education Ministry.

Dr Yaw Adutwum explained that the virtual High School to begin next academic year is part of the transformation that the New Patriotic Party(NPP), under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, intends for the education sector.

He explained that the virtual High School will be hosted on the Skills and Knowledge Bank Portal where students will be taken through their studies via the platform built with content from the approved curriculum.

The Minister disclosed that Ghana is collaborating with the Open University in the United Kingdom to build virtual labs which will be used by students enrolled in the Ghana Virtual High School.

“This also going to allow us to do the first-ever Ghana Virtual High School. It seeks to enroll about 10,000 students and the students are going to learn virtually. We are also with the support of the UK Open University building virtual labs.

So you can dissect a frog virtually. So you can’t say I went to a school without the 21st science lab; I couldn’t do science. You do your science virtually, and that is the new Ghana. In fact, some of the virtual labs that were developed were used in the UK but were developed by Ghanaian teachers.” he disclosed.

So at the end of the day, the digitalisation of education offers our nation a new opportunity. There is going to be a paradigm shift of major proportions and I think when we embrace it well and begin to look at what is possible, we can create a better education system. A system that we never thought we would have.

10 years ago we never thought there would be this, Ghana Knowledge Bank, second to what we’ve seen in Egypt and I think with the Ai Infusion, I think we are even getting ahead and we are going to create the best learning portal,” he said.

Mpuntu Technologies, a wholly Ghanaian-owned company built the portal with support from Telecommunication giant MTN and funding from the World Bank.

The Knowledge and Skills portal grants access to over 5 million online library archives, learning resources and tools for both students and researchers and comes in several other languages with an option for a personal teacher.

SOURCE: DAILY MAIL GH

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