Prof Quaynor urges universities to develop e-learning

Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, Chair of the Internet Society (ISOC) Ghana Chapter, has called on universities to development their infrastructure to enhance e-learning in the country.

He said policies and technology as agents of development were not enough and therefore, it was appropriate for universities to get the understanding among themselves and coordinate to develop the electronic platform.

Professor Quaynor, who is the father of internet in Africa, made these remarks in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sideline of an e-learning seminar organised by ISOC Ghana Chapter.

The seminar on the theme: “E-Learning: Prospects and Challenges in Ghana”, was aimed at highlighting the general overview of prospect and challenges for adopting and using e-learning.

Professor Quaynor said Ghana had most of the rudimentary elements that make up e-learning infrastructure community; stating that “we must take advantage of whatever infrastructure that exits in every university regarding the skills and tools it takes to produce good e-learning content”.

“Again we then have to learn to coordinate ourselves especially by taking advantage of research and educational network which is forming up among the universities.

“This will harness whatever campus infrastructure we have into a larger national education research network; which we can then inter-connect with the global research network to facilitate more collaboration among educational institutions and researchers,” he added.

Mr Eric Akumiah, the Director of Operations, National Information Technology Agency (NITA), also told GNA that the Agency’s vision is to provide leadership in the application of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in the public sector, by transforming government’s administration, information dissemination and service delivery for national development.

He said NITA’s data centre could be accessed by all and currently had a platform for e-learning and a nationwide Wi-Fi project for all citizens, however the challenge has been high cost of bandwidth which makes it difficult for people to access the e-learning.

Mr Akumiah said that the Agency’s platform was opened to all universities, adding that “NITA is using the infrastructure to support the growth of internet in Ghana and e-learning platforms.

The ISOC Ghana Chapter is a certified chapter of the ISOC which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the internet for the benefit of people throughout the world.

Source: GNA