KUMASI – A teacher from Ghana has received worldwide praise after a photo of him showing his students how to use Microsoft Word on a blackboard went viral.
Richard Appiah Akoto, a professional information and computer technology (ICT) teacher with the Ghana Education Service (GES), shared the photo of himself using multi-coloured chalk to recreate a computer screen as his students copied it into their notebooks.
“Teaching of ICT in Ghana’s school is very funny,” he said in the Facebook post alongside the photos.
For the past six years, Akto has taught at Betenase M/A Junior High School, a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of Ghana’s second-largest city, Kumasi, says Quartz. The school does not have any computers “even though since 2011, 14 and 15-year-olds are expected to write and pass a national exam…with ICT being one of the subjects.”
The original Facebook post quickly gained traction on other social media until someone tweeted the photo to Microsoft.
Supporting teachers to enable digital transformation in education is at the core of what we do. We will equip Owura Kwadwo with a device from one of our partners, and access to our MCE program & free professional development resources on https://t.co/dJ6loRUOdg
— Microsoft Africa (@MicrosoftAfrica) February 27, 2018
After a tweet reached Microsoft, the company pledged to send Mr Akoto a computer and give him access to its education material.
“Supporting teachers to enable digital transformation in education is at the core of what we do,” the software giant said in a tweet.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/viral/maths-teacher-solves-the-problem-by-installing-cycling-machines-under-students-desks/
While the post has become a source of inspiration for teachers in Africa, it’s a reflection of an under-resourced public school system.
Due to a lack of equipment, it is not uncommon for teachers to improvise and use blackboards to teach computer skills in Ghana, according to Ghana Pulse.
