By Abass Jalloh
Eleven thousand and two hundred (11,200) schools across the country are to get internet connectivity follow the launch of a project named Giga by the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) and UNICEF.
Giga, which was globally launched in 2019, is a UNICEF global initiative that seeks to connect every school to the internet and every young person to information, opportunity, and choice. The project serves as a platform in various countries to create the infrastructure necessary to provide digital connectivity to an entire country.
Project Coordinator of DSTI, Salima Bah said the Giga project for Sierra Leone is not just about providing internet accessibility to schools but also accompanying the internet with digital learning platforms, contents, and ICT labs in the schools to support students learning.
“This will greatly enhance teaching and learning in schools because what we are looking to do is to bridge the digital divide, and we are looking at what more developed countries are doing in terms of when their students or teachers have access to the internet, to the materials that are available online which currently our teachers don’t have,” Bah said.
In his presentation, the Innovation Specialist at UNICEF Sierra Leone, Shane O’Connor, stated that half of the population of the world does not have access to the internet.
O’Connor categorized the project’s impact and structure, mapping the potential connectivity in the schools, identifying current problems to solve the digital divide, connecting schools with various smart alternative technologies, financing the digital connectivity for the schools for consistent operations and empowering members of the society or community as a whole.
He stated that while eighty percent (80%) of Sierra Leone’s 11,200 schools are within coverage, only 205 schools are connected.
The education minister Dr. David Moinina Sengeh said since 2018 the government of Sierra Leone has been working on data proposition making, by looking at data science and machine learning to support policy and livelihoods.
Dr. Sengeh said by 2020 when the government signed to Giga, Sierra Leone had worked towards actualizing the project’s aim to give opportunity to the people of Sierra Leone, especially the youth.
On the side of working on the connectivity aspect, Giga in Sierra Leone is looking at ways in managing cost of these operations, the minister said. But he said they need to ensure the children benefit, which is why they are working with the Ministry of Information and Communications for connectivity and the Ministry of Energy for power generation.
“The potential impact of project Giga is bigger than we can imagine. Imagine what happens when we give people education, and in this 21st century, the power can happen when you give people information, and when you think about what is going on in Sierra Leone where our curriculum is thinking about creativity and critical thinking and coupled that with information, the world is our oyster and we can do wherever we have the space,” the minister stated
On the impact of the current internet connectivity in schools, Rev. Reginald Spain-Pratt, the Administrator of St. John’s Primary School, recalled when first the installation of computer lab through Giga was implemented, adding that his school was one of the beneficiaries.
“It is going to help our children,” he said. He acknowledged that exposure of the children has been more in video games but that with this form of connectivity, it would be important because they would be able to interact academically.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online (17/06/22)
