Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), together with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has held a Content Mapping and Gap Analysis Validation Workshop at the Cleaver House in Accra under the theme “Boosting Digital Skills through Digital Transformation Centres”.

The validation workshop follows research by MGA Consulting Limited, to assess and identify gaps in the training content delivered under the Digital Transformation Centres Project, and to map out additional courses which could improve the reach and impact of the project.

Speaking at the workshop, the Deputy Administrator of GIFEC, Mrs. Eva Andoh-Poku said the workshop is to validate the gap analysis and content mapping for Digital Skills training for the DTC Project in Ghana. She urged participants to make recommendations to help shape the final report.

On his part, the Director of Operations at GIFEC, Alhaji Yahaya Zakaria Osman expressed gratitude to MGA Consulting Limited, for their work and assured that the recommendations made would be implemented to the full.

The National Project Officer of ITU-Ghana, Mr. Alex Kojo Boahoma said the recommendations of the report will be adopted by ITU to serve as content for training, not only in Ghana, but in Africa as a whole.

Presenting the report, the Chief Executive Officer and Lead Consultant at MGA Consulting Ghana Limited, Mr. Michael Abbiw, outlined that the main objective for the study is to assess and identify gaps in the current content, based on the needs and characteristics of target beneficiaries, recommend adaptations to an existing content, and based on the needs assessments, propose new content to be developed.

He added that the scope of the assignment was to conduct a demand-side assessment of the digital skills needs of the project’s target beneficiaries, comprising female entrepreneurs, marginalized individuals (PWDs, school dropouts, and head potters), school teachers, out-of-school youth, and students, conduct a supply-side assessment of the course content offered to project beneficiaries, and identify additional training topics and materials for the DTC Initiative.

Mr. Abbiw mentioned that a gap analysis was conducted to determine the disparity between the project’s content offering and the digital skills needs of the beneficiaries, including the needs of marginalized individuals.

Mr. Abbiw stated that sixty-six (66) participants were sampled with forty-four (44) being females and twenty-two (22) males. “The study was intended to collect data from sixty-six (66) participants; 60 were intended for beneficiaries representing the demand side, and six represented the trainers who fall under the supply side across six (6) zones”, Mr. Abbiw said.

“After consultations with representatives from GIFEC and ITU, six locations (Ashaiman, Assin Fosu, Jasikan, Kodie Goaso and Tamale) from six regions (Greater Accra, Central, Oti, Ashanti, Ahafo and Northern Regions) were selected for 10 beneficiaries from each region and the trainer at the CIC”, He added.

Finally, he outlined a significant observation in respect to training materials used for the training saying “from our analysis we discovered that Female Entrepreneurs and Marginalized individuals want their training materials in English but in Hard Copy format. They also wanted video recordings of practical sessions in their local language.”

At the end of the workshop, participants recommended the following training courses: Introduction to MS Office Suite, Introduction to ICT Tools, Entrepreneurship, Digital Entrepreneurship and Programming.

Participants present at the workshop were staff from staff of GIFEC, ITU staff and selected CICs Managers from the Greater Accra Region.

The DTC project is in partnership with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Cisco and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and aimed at increasing a digitally literate citizenry, to boost their ICT capabilities to enable them to participate more meaningfully in the Knowledge Society of today.

The main objective of the project is to expand the digital capabilities and benefits of ICT to marginalised groups, particularly in the unserved and underserved communities in Ghana. The project which started in 2021, has trained over 6,500 citizens including, head porters, school dropouts, PWDs in basic and intermediate Cisco-certified courses within all the 16 Regions across the country.