The Ghana Education Service has started its One Teacher One Laptop initiative. The Director-General of the agency, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwah, witnessed the distribution of laptops to teachers at O’Reilly Senior High School in Accra on Monday.

The distribution train made a stop at the O’Reilly Senior High School amidst cheers and excitement from the teachers.
While presenting the devices, the Director-General discounted the perception people have about the brand. Many people have held the perception that the device is inferior. Others too have linked it to the Mahama-led government RLG laptops.

According to these critics, the laptops are inferior because they are not from familiar brands. In addition, people have also raised concerns that it’s expensive.

Addressing the cost issue, the Director-General said that “even the simplest smartphone does not cost less than GHc 500.00”. Therefore, if a “teacher is parting away with such an amount to own a laptop, that cannot be described as shortchanging the teacher.”

The Deputy Director-General in charge of Quality and Access, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, also used the opportunity to educate the teachers on the use of the laptop and its content.

He added that the laptops were preloaded with teaching resources and aids. In addition, they include the Curriculum.

Dr Tandoh again disclosed the Ghana Education Service will dedicate email accounts to teachers. According to him, that will enhance communication between the Service and teachers. This is to avoid the act of publishing unnecessary content on social media.

The teachers who received the laptops expressed their satisfaction with the device. They said that it will help them to teach effectively. Meanwhile, it will also spare them the stress of writing lesson notes in heavy notebooks.

The distributions at the Senior High School level will end on the 17th of December 2021. However, the 2nd and 3rd phases will take off in January 2022.