Reverse Mobile Phone Ban In SHSs – Avugbey

The Director of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Francis Avugbey, has advocated the revision of the ban on the use of mobile phones in schools.

He said in the current ICT world, technology had moved from static desk top machines to mobile phones, which were easier to carry and accessible making it the first choice gadget to any research work.

In addition, he said, mobile phones helped students to learn on their own and also interact with the global community on the various social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, among others.

“They will be able to download and transfer documents easily as well as make teaching and learning more fun and interactive in the classroom as they share ideas,” he added.

Mr Avugbey made the suggestion at the opening ceremony of a two-day committee of experts workshop aimed at updating the National ICT in Education Policy.

It was organised by the GES and attended by experts in the learning environment, governance, infrastructure and technical support.

On the issue of the abuse of mobile phone usage in schools, Mr Avugbey explained that students would not have the time to make or receive calls as the current mobile technologies provided more applications for messaging.

“If you ban them from using it, it would be difficult for them to study as they would only have a limited scope for research and this is not enough,” he explained.

A Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa, in his remarks urged the experts to critically review and update the current policy documents in order to come up with a more comprehensive policy that could be acceptable and practicable.

He also called on them to consider addressing, among other things, issues in ICT that was unfolding in the international arena as well as look into the existing draft and bring out the necessary issue for review.