In the face of a global technological revolution, not only are some schools in Tema faced with infrastructural challenges but they also lack basic gadgets for teaching and learning information communication technology (ICT).
The quagmire of development is that the phenomenon does not only pertain to basic schools, but also involves second-circle schools – which is the turning point for students who desire to pursue higher education, and one such school is the Tema Presbyterian Senior High School (PRESEC).
Though located in the port and most industrial city of Ghana, Tema PRESEC faces serious infrastructural challenges as the few available classrooms are surprisingly endowed with potholes due to wear and tear.
In the face of this infrastructural deficit, a seven-unit classroom GET-Fund project that commenced in 2010 has been left stalled to date; which has consequently compelled the school to conduct classes under trees.
Aside from the foregoing, the school lacks a canteen, science laboratory and ICT laboratory to enhance teaching and learning ICT.
The school has however heaved a sigh of relief, as Tema Lube Oil Company Limited has refurbished and stocked the school’s hitherto empty ICT laboratory. The items included one projector, one laptop, a projector screen, two air-conditioners and forty desktop computers – already installed with the Microsoft Windows operating system and Windows Defender antivirus software.
Alhaji Alhassan Gomda, Board Chairman-Tema Lube Oil Company Ltd., presenting the items said the gesture aims at promoting STEM education and is one of the many interventions the company has over the years made in its focused areas of health, education and security in fulfillment of its corporate social responsibility in its catchment area of operation.
He mentioned the conversion of two classrooms into a computer laboratory at the CHEMU SHTS; the provision of ambulances for the Tema and Ashaiman Polyclinics, with three years of repairs and insurance packages borne by the company; donation of an ambulance and medical ventilator to the Tema General Hospital; and establishment of a police post at the Tema Timber Market as some recent interventions made by the company.
Alhaji Gomda, to this end, asked Ghanaians to continually purchase products such as engine oils, hydraulic oils, gear oils, industrial and other machine oils produced by the Tema Lube Oil Company Limited with OSO certification, to step up its CSO intervention drive in communities and institutions.
The Member of Parliament, Tema Central, Yves Nii Noi Hanson-Nortey lauded the gesture and underscored the essence of stepped-up ICT teaching and learning at basic and secondary schools to put Ghanaian students at par with their Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean counterparts – in order not to be left behind in this era of technological revolution.
Among other things, he asked teachers not to restrict the students from patronising the facility, and also exhibit a good maintenance culture for the laboratory to fulfil its intended purpose.
Established in 1994, the Tema Presbyterian Senior High School now boasts a student population of 747 and yearns to roll-out an elective ICT subject but lacks the required equipment. The donation comes to make the long-awaited dream almost a reality, as this will help the school to commence the elective ICT course.
