UNICEF, in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES), has introduced a Mobile School Report Card (MSRC) scheme aimed at improving data collection and performance of teachers in more than 700 basic schools.
The home-grown technology, developed with the backing of USAID, is to help education officials monitor the work of teachers which previously was done manually and did not create the right ambience for proper supervision.
Mrs Rhoda Enchil, the Special Education Officer at UNICEF, said 1,367 tablets worth $400,000 have been procured for teachers and circuit supervisors to support the exercise being piloted in 729 schools in 10 districts.
The districts profiting from the tool include: Garu Tempane, Wa West, Krachi East, Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA), Savelugu-Nanton, Kwahu Afram Plains North, Tolon, Ga East, Upper West Akim and Upper Denkyira West.
The new technology has improved attendance of teachers significantly in the beneficiary schools, Mrs Rhoda told reporters on Monday during a field visit to observe how inclusive education was being practiced by some schools in Cape Coast and Elmina in the Central Region.
Mr Isaac Opoku-Inkoom, the Special Education Coordinator of KEEA, said it had replaced the manual one which, hitherto, made school heads to contend with bulky paper materials and travelled long routes to submit reports to district offices.
Since its introduction, the teachers had recorded superior improvements in lesson notes preparation and delivery, and boosted contact hours.
Teachers’ punctuality and regularity to school have also soared significantly, he said, and their overall progression in performance is expected to reflect in the output of children during exams.
The District Education Office is able to monitor activities of teachers and school children with a computerised monitoring system fixed at the unit.
“What we have done is that we have digitised the system where every headmaster in the 10 districts where we are piloting. There is a tablet and in all the tablets there is an app,” the Communications Officer at UNICEF, Mrs Offeibea Baddoo, said.
She said there was dash board in the regional and national offices where education officials were able to see every school in Elmina including attendance of teachers, whether they have done their lesson notes or not and what issues pertained in schools.
“They can take a picture of a problem immediately and send it, it is helping because there is visibility and education directors can visit schools unannounced and hold teachers accountable,” Mrs Baddoo said.
Mrs Phillistina Mensah, the Headmistress of Dabir-Benyadze-Egyei M/A KG/Primary school at Ayensudo, said: “In fact, the MSRC is helping a lot, at first when we finish all our reports, we have to tabulate them on sheets, send them to the district office, they will be calling bring this, bring that but it’s all been removed.
However, teachers using the technology told journalists that cost of data, power supply, internet connectivity and network service fluctuations were some of the challenges.
Source: GNA
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