Education Minister gives date to open Ghana’s Virtual High School

In collaboration with the Open University in the United Kingdom, Ghana’s first-ever Virtual High School will be opened in the next academic year, the Minister in Charge of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has disclosed.

Speaking at the launch of the Ghana Knowledge and Skills Bank Portal on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, Dr Yaw Adutwum said in the meantime about 10,000 students nationwide will be enrolled in the Virtual Senior High School.

To begin next academic year, he said virtual high school is part of the transformation that the New Patriotic Party (NPP), under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia intends for the education sector.

The Education Minister indicated that the virtual high school will be hosted on the Skills and Knowledge Bank Portal, where students will go through their studies via the platform, which contains content from the approved curriculum.

Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum at the Knowledge and Skills Bank launch said Ghana is collaborating with the Open University in the United Kingdom to build virtual labs that will be utilised by students enrolled in the Ghana Virtual High School.

“This will also allow us to establish the first-ever Ghana Virtual High School. It aims to enroll about 10,000 students who will engage in virtual learning. With the support of the UK Open University, we are building virtual labs.

“This will enable students to virtually dissect a frog, for example. So, students can’t say they attended a school without a 21st-century science lab; they couldn’t conduct science experiments.

Science experiments can now be done virtually, and that is the new Ghana. In fact, some of the virtual labs developed were used in the UK but were created by Ghanaian teachers,” the Minister of Education told stakeholders at the event.

Dr. Adutwum emphasised that the digitalization of education by the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government presents a new opportunity for the nation to increase high school enrolment.

“There will be a significant paradigm shift, and by embracing it and exploring its possibilities, we can establish a better education system that was previously unimaginable

Ten years ago, we never imagined having the Ghana Knowledge Bank, which is now second only to what we see in Egypt. With the infusion of AI, we are moving forward and creating the best learning portal,” he stated.

Speaking at the second national digital and distance learning conference in Accra, Mr Adutwum said remedial classes would also be conducted for academically challenged students to prepare them adequately for resit examinations.

Commenting on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education he said it was the future, urging that any country that wanted sustained future progress needed to adopt the programme.

The Minister for Education and Bosomtwe Member of Parliament added that the government was changing the education system to a sector that encouraged creativity and innovation among learners.

Dr Adutwum said it was in line with this vision that various public STEM schools which were at different stages of completion were being put up in the country.

“We have the opportunity to expand science education to schools across the country and truly double science enrolment in the next two years,” the minister added.

The conference was organized by the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS) on the theme: “Reimagining education: A call on multi-stakeholder coordination and action for equitable access to digital and distance learning in Africa”.

The two-day conference, which was opened in Accra yesterday, was organized in partnership with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Ministry of Education (MoE).