Africa should harness the power of ICT – Robert Baffour

Dasmani Laary* African leaders must get serious and muster the political will to grab onto new information and communication technologies to propel growth, an official at Ghana's Technology University College has said. "The future of the African continent depends on the willingness of leaders to harness the new information communication technologies (ICT) to advance growth and improve quality of lives of the citizenry, vice president of the college, Robert Awuah Baffour, said. "A nation unable to join this new economic order, unable to harness the power of information communication technology is effectively locked out the new global economy and forced to remain a marginal player on the world economic stage." Economies like Singapore, China and India have been transformed significantly and become richer in the last 20 years largely due to a well-structured education woven with ICT that meet country specific needs, Baffour opined. Sub-Saharan Africa has not flourished and become poorer largely due to lack of education and urged leaders to make ICT integral part of their tertiary education to build capacities of the youth to enable them "change the face of poverty and despair to income and hope", he said. Addressing 722 local and international students at a matriculation ceremony at the weekend, the Baffour reaffirmed the university's commitment to delivery on its mandate of mounting technology-oriented programmes relevant to the needs of Ghanaian businesses and industry. The world summit on the information society to which Ghana subscribes also calls for building an inclusive information society, including the promotion of ICTs towards the achievement of internationally agreed development goals contained in the millennium declaration. Efforts to introduce ICTs into the Ghana's education sector spanned pre-tertiary and tertiary but the efforts have largely been geared towards the deployment of ICT tools via the provision of computers and the establishment of ICT laboratories. Access, however, is still below the standards and numbers demanded, according to Ghana's ICT education policy document, 2008. *Source theafricareport]]>