ICT Capacity Building and Skills Development ProgrammeICT Capacity Building and Skills Development ProgrammeICT Capacity Building and Skills Development ProgrammeICT Capacity Building and Skills Development Programme

ICT Capacity Building and Skills Development Programme

This programme is being implemented with the goal of reinforcing and expanding the use and benefits of ICTs for the general public, by supporting a range of capacity building, education, and awareness projects

The objective of this programme is to promote digital inclusion at the community level and also help bridge the digital divide nationwide, by funding the provision of basic ICT training to civil and public servants and others in the underserved and unserved communities using the Community ICT Centers (CICs).

This programme seeks to run training and capacity building projects to develop digital skills, mainly at basic and intermediate levels, and particularly in Unserved and Underserved Communities, to increase digital literacy within the citizenry, particularly amongst women, girls and Persons with Disabilities.

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The Girls in ICT Programme

The Girls in ICT programme was introduced in 2012 by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider studies and careers in the growing field of Information and Communication Technologies (ITUs).

The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, under the stewardship of Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, since 2017, has adopted the initiative, as a platform to equip girls between the ages of 9 and 15 years (Upper Primary – Junior High School) with knowledge and skills in basic ICT and Coding.

The programme is implemented with support from Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) as the technical resource provider, with training by Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence (KACE). The programme is also supported by MTN Ghana, National Communications Authority (NCA), American Towers Company (ATC) and others.

Since its inception, 8,000 girls and 800 teachers have been trained in the Ashanti, Western, Central, Oti Regions, Western North, North East Regions, Bono East and Bono Regions.

The programme involves the following components:

  • Training of Trainers
  • Training of girls from districts within the selected region
  • A Mentorship session where women currently working in the ICT field share their personal and professional experience with the young girls to encourage and guide them in their future career choices.
  • A Climax Event that involves the following:
    • Presentation of awards for best-performing girls
    • Speeches
    • Presentation of certificates to all girls
  • An open day experience where the best 100 girls are brought to Accra for a week to tour Mobile Network Operators (MNO)’s, American Towers Company, ICT firms and interact with women in the workspace.

It is important to note the following achievements between 2017 and 2021:

  • 8,000 Girls have been trained & mentored
  • 800 Teachers trained to train more girls in ICT, beyond the programme
  • 51 Cyberlabs have been set up
  • 1,134 laptops given to teachers and top-performing girls

GIFEC supports the implementation of the Girls in ICT programme, as the technical resource provider, in line with its Cyberlabs and ICT Capacity Building and Skills Development Programme, through the provision of computers for all training, computers for awards, as well as cash prizes for the awardees.

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Digital Transformation Centres Programme (DTC)

GIFEC is partnering with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and Cisco for the implementation of the Digital Transformation Centres (DTC).

The programme forms part of a broader goal of building an inclusive digital society where lack of digital skills should not be a barrier to participation in the digital economy. It aims at building a digitally literate citizenry to boost their ICT capabilities to enable them to participate meaningfully in the knowledge society of today.

The programme involves training of beneficiaries spanning persons in the formal and informal sectors; students, teachers, training for women and girls, youth, and the marginalised in communities such as head porters, school dropouts and school leavers in Cisco certified courses.

It is designed to develop digital skills, mainly at the basic and intermediate levels particularly in underserved communities, and features courses like Introduction to Cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Essentials, Introduction to IoT, Python, C++ and Entrepreneurship.

Achievements

Phase 1

  • Training of 23 Master Trainers
  • Six Thousand, Nine Hundred and Sixty-One (6,961) participants trained
  • Coding Clubs formed to train a total of 1,000 students across the country, within 2 years.

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ICT Skills for Entrepreneurial Women’s Empowerment (ISEWE)

GIFEC has partnered the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on the ICT Skills for Entrepreneurial Women Empowerment project, which seeks is to expand the digital capabilities and benefits of ICTs to the disadvantaged women and girls through capacity building, education, and awareness.

The purpose of the project is to bring ICTs within reach of rural areas and other under-privileged groups, as a potential vehicle to assist train the disadvantaged girls and women to acquire literacy skills, numeracy skills, entrepreneurial skills and more importantly help the unemployed start and build their own businesses.

  • 720 Women Entrepreneurs Trained

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“ICT and Media in Ghana: Efficient Tools for Youth to Counter Extremism (PVE)”, in collaboration with UNESCO

  • 600 Youths trained

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  • 15,000 Artisans (Mechanics, Hairdressers, Market Women) trained in Basic ICT

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Coding For Kids

The objective of this project is to give opportunity to kids and the youth to explore the world of technology through the creation of websites, computer games, interactive arts, mobile apps and animation stories, using programming languages like JAVA script, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), among others.

  • 150 teachers have been trained
  • 4500 school children have benefited from this project.

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Workshop on Electromagnetic Fields Exposure and its Impact on Health

Since June 2010, GIFEC has embarked upon a series of public education on Electromagnetic Fields (EMF), exposure and health, with the aim of raising awareness on issues of the related to exposure limits as well as addressing communication challenges. So far all the 10 regional capitals and nine municipal/district capitals have been covered.

Obuasi, Tarkwa, Hohoe, Savelugu, Techiman, Navrongo, Swedru, Jirapa, Kintampo and Lawra have hosted the programme.