The Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Shlomit Sufa, has urged Ghanaian institutions to explore solutions available in the Israeli Education Technology (Ed-tech) space, to boost the country’s educational sector.
She said Israel had 339 Ed-tech companies out of which 50 per cent were startups with about $150 million in investments in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), test and text archiving, student engagement and project management.
Speaking at the Israeli Ed-tech campaign breakfast meeting, yesterday, in Accra, MsSufasaid there was a variety of promising opportunities for partnership between the Israeli and Ghanaian Ed-tech industries.
The campaign led by the Embassy’s Trade and Economic Mission, aims to create a synergy between Ghanaian Israeli EdTech sectors, to help achieve priority areas in the national Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education policy.
In furtherance of this, the meeting, attended by representatives from the Ghana Education Service, tertiary institutions and tech companies served as a platform for Israel EdTech companies to showcase their expertise to prospective Ghanaian partners.
MrsSufa said the partnership would help Ghana especially when Ghana’s ICT education policy highlighted seven priority areas, including education management, capacity building, e-readiness infrastructure, content development, and incorporation of ICTs into the curriculum.
“Through this initiative, we believe that innovative solutions can be developed or explored to meet these needs in Ghana’s growing educational sector be lit primary or tertiary level,” she said.
The education sector, according to MrsSufa, was one of the priority sectors of her country in its development partnership with Ghana, thus, since the reopening of the Israeli Embassy in Ghana in 2011, it had been working with Ghanaian stakeholders to share knowledge to boost the sector.
Aside from the Ed-Tech campaign, she said, the Embassy had launched a programme dubbed the Education for Digital Innovation project under which it had commissioned three fully furnished ICT classrooms for some selected Senior High schools.
“This initiative was borne out of our desire to align with the government of Ghana’s drive to project digitalisation and innovation not only in the economy but also in the education sector,” MrsSufasaid.
MsBrachaRapaport, the Head of the Ed-tech sector of the Israel Export Institute, said the inclusion of IT in education had become imperative because students were losing interest in the traditional mode of teaching.
She said the sector, therefore, needed an infusion of IT to encourage innovation, and sustained engagement and make teaching and learning easier for both teachers and students.
The Director of e-learning at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Prof Eric Apau-Asante, said Ghana was making progress in the use of IT in the education sector, but it had a long way to go.
He, therefore, advised stakeholders in the education sector to identify gaps and take advantage of opportunities in the tech space to make Ghana’s education sector robust.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
