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‘Let’s assist children to use internet to learn, deepen penetration’

The government, media and parents must collabo­rate to initiate measures to protect children from internet and cyber abuse, the Senior Manager of Enterprise Information Se­curity and Governance of MTN Ghana, Jacqueline Hanson-Kotei, has said.

That, she said, would help children to continue to use the internet to learn and interact with the global community and deepen internet use and penetration in the country.

Mrs Hanson-Kotei made the appeal during a Cybersecurity Awareness programme in Accra yesterday.

The programme, organised by MTN Ghana, was to mark Africa Safer Internet Day, a day set aside to raise awareness of good inter­net practices.

She said per International Communications Union statistics, 71 per cent of internet users were the youth.

Mrs Hanson-Kotei said it was for that reason MTN Ghana decided to mark the Africa Safer Internet Day at the Osu Presby­terian Senior High School to edu­cate the students on safe internet practices.

“We are here today at the Osu Presbyterian Senior High School to give the necessary guidance to the youth on how to be safe on the internet,” Mrs Hanson-Kotei stated.

The Senior Manager for En­terprise Information Security and Governance said MTN Ghana and the Internet Foundation last year launched a Child Online Pro­tection Portal to protect children on the internet.

She said the portal provided an avenue for children to report internet bullying.

The Senior Lead Information Technology Governance and Compliance at MTN Ghana, Prince Essandoh, in a presenta­tion on internet use, advised the students to desist from posting private and nude pictures on the internet.

He said posting private and nude pictures was dangerous since the same could be used to black­mail them.

Mr Essandoh further advised the students to use the internet for positive things, such as learn­ing, to enhance their education and broaden their horizons.

The Headmaster of Osu Presbyterian Senior High School (PRESEC), Vincent Esoah, appealed to corporate bodies to assist the school with computers to enhance effective teaching and learning of Information Commu­nication Technology (ICT) in the school.

He said the school had only 33 computers, yet it had 308 ICT students.

Asked whether the manage­ment of the school had reported the problem of computers to the Ministry of Education for redress, Mr Esoah responded in the affir­mative.

“The Ministry of Education just wrote to us and has sent a team to do an audit of the com­puter system of the school,” he said.

Mr Esoah said government alone could not shoulder the responsibility of providing for the computer needs of the school, and appealed to corporate bodies to assist the school to procure more computers.

He commended MTN Ghana for organising the programme to educate the students on good internet practices and cybersecu­rity issues.

He said cybersecurity had become a global issue and it was important MTN Ghana had taken the lead to educate students on the problem.

BY TIMES REPORTER

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