Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Telecommunications chamber, Ken Ashigbey has urged the Ghana Education Service to consider lifting the ban on mobile phone usage in SHS across the country.
According to him, the GES must allow Ghanaian students to make use of the opportunities available in the present globalized world as their counterparts in other countries.
Addressing the issue at the 88th Speech and Prize Giving day of St Augustine's college, Saturday, Mr Ashigbey said,
"We have to look at the Ghana Education Service’s policy that does not allow students in secondary schools to use mobile phones."
He added that " We need to bear in mind that mobile technology and digitization is defining the now and the future. Like any tool, it can be used for good and evil. The difference between us and the societies making progress is how they harness the tools available to them for the benefit of their society.â€
Stressing on the same issue, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Cape Coast, Most Rev Mathias Nketsia said that although technology is now dominant and an essential part of the world, students must be given the right guidance and be exposed to its usage with discipline.
“Technology without character, ethical and moral formation is a very dangerous thing indeed. Technology must be guided and informed by spiritual, ethical and moral technologies, otherwise; we shall sink", he warned.
Ban on mobile phone usage to be lifted- Communications ministry
The Ministry of Communications hinted last year that it was holding discussions with the Education Ministry to lift the ban on the use of Mobile phones in Senior High Schools across the country.
Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful revealed at the National Dialogue on digital transformation in October 2017 that the move was to "have curricula loaded unto the devices so that they use as learning aids and not fun toolsâ€.
However, no moves have yet been made to lift the ban on mobile phone usage in the country.
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