Telecommunication giant, MTN, has donated four brand new laptop computers with its accessories to the New Asafo M/A Basic School in the Asafo Municipality of the Ashanti Region, in an attempt to enhance the teaching and learning of Information Communication and Technology (ICT).
MTN has also promised to help operationalise the computer laboratory of the said school, which has been in hibernation, as part of their effort to improve ICT and digital skills training for the school.
Dubbed: ‘Kumasi Yello Care Event’, it is an annual event organised by MTN to launch different initiatives all around the country. As such, MTN paid a working visit to the school and toured sections of the said school. A number of MTN staff interacted with the students and encouraged them to study hard and appreciate ICT since it is the order of the day.
Prior to touring the school, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN, Selorm Adadevoh, paid a courtesy call on the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Asokwa, Mr. Akwannuasa Gyimah, since the New Asafo M/A School is under the administrative jurisdiction of the Asokwa Municipal Assembly.
Mr. Adadevoh later presented four laptop computers to the school, where he urged the students to be ICT-inclined, and announced that MTN would support the school to have a functioning computer laboratory after MTN had learnt the ICT lab of the school was not operational.
In an interview with the media, the MTN CEO disclosed that the visit of MTN to the school aims to support the New Asafo Basic School with ICT or computer skills.
He stated: “One of the things we are doing in the month of June is something called twenty-one days of yellow care, and twenty-one days of yellow care is a programme we do every year at MTN, where we launch different initiatives all around the country.”
This year’s initiative, according to the CEO, focuses on ICT and digital skills training for schools, and the New Asafo M/A Basic School is one of the school they selected, adding that a number of MTN staff visited the school to share with the students what computers can do, what ICT means in their education, and how they can improve their productivity using computers.
On ICT being the yardstick of development, Mr. Adadevoh asserted that globally, ICT has become extremely important, adding that technology knowledge is one of the yardsticks used to determine whether a country is developed or vice versa.
The MTN CEO said: “If we do not start educating our students from primary school all the way up with computers, then I am afraid we will be left behind in the global competitiveness. Our goal is to support everything government is doing in ICT to contribute our quota to help our kids and the youth with the necessary skills so we can be a competitive nation in the future.”
He noted that this exercise is ongoing in a number of regions across Ghana in the month of June.
This exercise, Mr. Adadevor said, led MTN to donate four laptops to the said school, and also digitise their administrative tasks and support the efforts toward improving ICT skills, all from the top the students.
The MCE for Asokwa, Mr. Akwannuasa Gyimah, expressed appreciation to MTN for supporting the school in diverse ways. He appealed to the students to study hard since education is the best legacy their parent can bequeath to them.
On her part, Madam Grace Opoku Konadu, the headmistress of New Asafo M/A Basic School thanked the telecommunication giant for the gesture, but asked for more.
