Ms Angela Mensah-Poku, the Director of Digital Transformation and Commercial Operations, Vodafone Ghana, has called for more public-private partnerships and collaborations within the EdTech eco-system to drive equitable, fair, and quality digital learning for all.
Speaking on the topic: "Access to Digital Resources," organised by the MasterCard Foundation, a non-governmental organisation focused on helping the youth in Africa to attain their fullest potentials, Ms Mensah-Poku joined other stakeholders to share her thoughts on the challenges with EdTech, the opportunities and some interventions that were helping to address the digital divide.
"We believe in the power of technology through partnerships. Our priority has been to collaborate with everyone in the ecosystem in order to create an equitable and quality digital learning experience for all," she said.
"We look at the challenges in EdTech in totality and that informs our approach to digital learning; whether it is infrastructure, access, content, or even developing the digital skills of students and teachers."
Highlighting Vodafone Ghana's contribution to eLearning, Ms Mensah-Poku said: "Vodafone has donated hundreds of devices to brilliant and needy students. In making sure that we are aware and conscious of the in-built biases in tech and ensuring they are top-of-mind, we have several gender-led unique programmes for girls including our Coding for Girls programme, which has trained over 1000 girls nation-wide."
In a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency, she said Vodafone had also extended its fibre broadband to over 50 different ICT labs across the country.
"Our infrastructure has also enabled developers and content providers in the ecosystem to provide content online and offline through the use of channels that don't require internet,'' she said.
Ms Mensah-Poku lauded the Government's "One Teacher, One Laptop" initiative, aimed at facilitating lesson planning, teaching and learning outcomes, and called for additional support to ensure teachers and students fully benefited from the package.
She, however, urged the Government to build an eco-system for teachers to implement an e-learning model that enabled every child to have a personal digital learning experience that left no one behind.
Vodafone continues to demonstrate profound commitment to introducing sustainable interventions that helped the government to address key societal challenges, she said
Some of the Telco's numerous youth-led initiatives include programmes aimed at delivering quality education for all, addressing unemployment, bridging the digital skills gap amongst the youth, and ultimately building the country's human capital.
Vodafone recently organised a Virtual Skills Fair, which hosted over 5,000 young people and seasoned speakers to help the youth acquire the skills needed to make them self employed.