Let me tell you a story. In 2021, amidst the pandemic, a young teacher in Kenya named Amina found herself navigating new territory.
Her school had been shut for months, and her students — mostly from low-income households — were slipping behind.
But through a partnership between the Kenyan Ministry of Education and Eneza Education (a local Edtech company), her students could access lessons via basic mobile phones.
No smartphones, no internet — just SMS. It wasn’t flashy, but it worked. It kept learning alive.
Now ask yourself: What made this possible?
The answer is simple: policy.
While innovation is often born in living rooms, coworking spaces, and university labs, sustainable transformation happens when policy meets innovation with purpose.
In Ghana, we’ve seen sparks of Edtech brilliance — startups, digital literacy campaigns, and device distribution efforts — but to truly ignite change, we need to ask: Do we have the right policies to support, scale and sustain Edtech?
Why Edtech policy matters more than ever
Let’s be honest — Edtech is no longer a luxury or nice-to-have. It’s the backbone of how modern societies build resilient, future-ready human capital.
Policies serve as the invisible hand — setting the rules, creating standards, and ensuring that no child, no teacher, no school is left behind in the digital revolution.
Without a clear and strong policy environment, we risk:
- Duplicating efforts across agencies
- Leaving out the most vulnerable schools and learners
- Stifling innovation with bureaucracy
- Failing to prepare our youth for the jobs of the future
And in the end, we risk missing education’s most important goal: to build a society filled with bold, capable, empathetic, and patriotic citizens ready to build Ghana forward.
What the numbers are saying
According to the EdTech Hub (2023), only 35percent of Sub-Saharan African countries have a comprehensive Edtech strategy. Ghana is making progress — but slowly.
The MoE’s Education Sector Plan (2018–2030) includes digital literacy and ICT integration. But there’s no unified national Edtech policy yet that outlines clear strategies for infrastructure, content standards, teacher training, data privacy, and private sector collaboration.
Meanwhile:
- Rwanda has a National ICT in Education Policy since 2016. By 2022, they had distributed over 300,000 laptops to students through the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
- India launched its National Education Policy (NEP) in 2020 with a dedicated National Educational Technology Forum to guide tech use in classrooms.
- South Korea spends 5percent of its education budget on Edtech R&D, focusing on AI, digital textbooks, and online assessments.
- In Estonia, where digital learning is fully integrated from early childhood to university, students were able to continue learning seamlessly during the COVID-19 lockdowns because of long-term digital infrastructure planning.
Ghana must not be left behind.
What can Ghana learn and do now?
Here are five key takeaways from global leaders Ghana can apply:
- Develop a clear national Edtech strategy – This should include timelines, goals, budget allocations, teacher capacity building, and partnerships with local innovators.
- Create an Edtech sandbox for startups – Like in the UK and India, Ghana can build a policy sandbox that allows Edtech startups to test ideas in real classrooms — with support and oversight from GES.
- Include equity as a policy priority – Policies should focus not just on urban centers, but on underserved areas. This includes support for low-tech solutions like radio, SMS, and community learning hubs.
- Standardize and regulate content quality – What makes a good educational app or platform? Who certifies it? Ghana needs clear standards to protect learners and ensure quality.
- Champion data privacy and ethics in education – With increasing digital tools comes sensitive data. Ghana must develop guidelines for protecting student and teacher data in alignment with global practices.
We must not lose sight of education’s true purpose
At its heart, education is not about devices or data — it’s about people. It’s about preparing young minds to think critically, feel deeply, collaborate widely, and act boldly. Edtech is a means to that end — not the end itself.
When Ghana gets Edtech policy right, we empower:
- The girl in Navrongo who dreams of building robots
- The boy in Nsawam who teaches himself animation after school
- The teacher in Takoradi who finally feels confident using digital tools
- The parent in Ho who helps their child revise with a learning app
We build a society we can all be proud of — one where education truly becomes the great equalizer.
In closing: it’s time to be bold with policy
Edtech policy is not the work of tomorrow. It is the work of today — urgent, necessary, and non-negotiable. We must bring together educators, entrepreneurs, government leaders, students, parents, and civil society to co-create a roadmap for Ghana’s digital education future.
The future is already here — we just need the political will and collective focus to shape it well. Let’s move from pilot projects to national plans. From siloed apps to system-wide integration. From good ideas to great policy.
Because in the end, it’s not just about catching up with the world. It’s about leading it — with empathy, excellence, and a commitment to every Ghanaian learner. Look out for our next article in this Edtech series.
>>>the writer is President of Ghana Edtech Alliance. He can be reached via [email protected]
