Gold Fields hands over $68k Smart Lab to New Atuabo Basic School

Gold Fields Ghana Foundation (GFGF) has handed over a $68,000 Smart Lab and innovation center to New Atuabo Basic School in Tarkwa.

The facility, for now, would be used by all the schools within the ten host communities.

The facility would aid the pupils to solve problems.

Nana Kweku Baah, chief of New Atuabo, Obaahema Abena Bodua II, Queen mother of

Apinto,  Nana Kwesi Ansah, chief of Brahabobome, Catherine Biney, Director of Ghana

Education

Service, Tarkwa, Elliot Twum, Snr Vice President and Managing Director of Gold Fields, among many others graced the commissioning of the smart lab center.

Giving the history behind the facility, Nana Kweku Baah, chief of New Atuabo, indicated it was a battle deciding on the location of the facility, given that all communities wanted to host it. However, it was later agreed that the facility be located at New Atuabo.

Nana Kweku Baah, therefore, advised the pupils to make good use of the facility.

He advised the teachers to do their part by guiding the pupils to properly use the facility, which would be accessible by all schools in the area.

He, however, urged the mining company to consider setting up two or three lab centers for other host communities to reduce the difficulty of traveling to use the facility.

The chief commended the mining giant for always coming to the aid of the people. The Regional Director of Ghana Education Service (GES), George Effah, whose speech was read on his behalf emphasised the importance of ICT and pivotal role it plays in education, especially in the area of critical thinking.

Teaching of ICT, he said, has become a challenge and that pupils and students were being taught theoretically.

It is in this direction that he commended GFGF for putting up such a facility for use by pupils and students in the host communities.

The importance of ICT the GES Director maintained could not be over-emphasized given that the world was moving at a smart pace and pupils could not be left behind.

With this facility, he indicated the learners could join e-learning and other digital platforms.

He called for prudent measures to be put in place to derive good benefits of the facility.

He advised “the learners should be allowed to manipulate the computers so that they can become masters of the computers” expressing the hope learners would put the facility to good use for the purpose it was built for.

Elliot Twum, Senior Vice President and MD of GFGL, expressed excitement over the handing over of the facility. He said with the growing interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics, the Foundation set up the Smart Lab and Innovation Centre as a pilot project for advancing the integration of technology and digital tools into the teaching and learning experience.

“This is referred to as Education 4.0 and it promotes learners’ independence as well as provides personalised learning”.

The Foundation, he told the gathering invested over US$68,000 into the project intended to serve students from Primary 5 to JHS 3 in the New Atuabo Community Basic School as well as other public and private

schools in the community.

In 2022 the Ghana Education Service (GES) introduced Computational Thinking as part of the curriculum for basic school education in Ghana. Unfortunately, a lot of the public basic schools in the country do not have the facilities to support the teaching and learning of the

subject.

Teachers in some basic schools, especially schools locatedin smaller communities, depend solely on textbooks to teach the subject, with no practical aspect.

Given that government alone could not shoulder the responsibility of development,

Elliot Twum told the gathering his outfit took the decision to pilot the Smart Lab and

Innovation Centre concept in partnership with Coral Reef – a Ghanaian owned Institution.

The New Atuabo Smart Lab and Innovation Centre, Elliot Twum informed the gathering, is

fully equipped with 50 high performance tablets with a charging cabinet, 20 coding and robotics kits, Lego Prime robotics kits, 10 Arduino kits, three Quest Virtual Reality headsets, two laptops for the instructors, a projector and a router for internet connectivity.

In addition to teaching the mandatory Computational Skills, he told the gathering the

facility would also train pupils from all 10 basic schools in the community, as well as any interested adults, in basic robotics and AI at a fee.

The facility is also well equipped to handle courses such as Introduction to Robotics and Coding with mBot; Introduction to Arduino Programming using Tinker card and Physical

Computing with Micro bits among many other exciting programmes.

He expressed his heartfelt appreciation to the GES Director in Tarkwa Nsuaem, Madam

Catherine Biney, for putting together experienced team to manage the facility. He said he was confident that, under her leadership, the Smart Lab and all its facilities would be handled well.

A management team responsible for managing the facility has also been put together. They

Include; Nana Kweku Baah, chief of New Atuabo, Janet Amponsah, a staff of the school,

representative of GFGF and Regional Director of GES.

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