The agreement, which was officially signed on the side-line of the recent Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), between the government and management of the company, is to expand the nation's distance learning infrastructure.

Mr Wang Weixing, Vice-President of Inspur's Office in Beijing, confirmed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) when a team of some selected Ghanaian media practitioners paid a visit to familiarise with the Office's operations and activities.

He hinted that the project was targeting technical universities in the country, as well as the Accra and Tamale campuses of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS).It is being implemented under the 'Inspur Smart Education Programme', and expected to give access to the majority of the youth to benefit from courses and programmes offered by those institutions online.

Mr. Weixing indicated that the beneficiary institutions would be furnished with IT laboratories, cloud data centres and campus Wi-Fi, multimedia and recording rooms, as well as state-of-the-art distance learning system.In 2016, Ghana embarked on reforms to convert its polytechnics into technical universities to help reposition them as strategic institutions for the training of highly-skilled human resource to drive its socio-economic and industrial development agenda.

The project, therefore, is part of moves by the government to reinforce this initiative as technical education was the backbone for the rapid industrialisation of any country.Mr. Weixing affirmed the commitment of the Group to partner Ghana for the realisation of its development objectives, especially in the area of technology-transfer to create wealth among the people.

He stressed that the company had chosen the country as the hub for its activities in the West African sub-Region, explaining that it was borne out of Ghana's impressive economic outlook and the favourable socio-political stability over the years.Mr. Kofi Ohene Benning, Acting Director in-charge of Human Resource at the Ministry of Information, who led the team of media practitioners for the visit, lauded the government for the initiative as IT had become the basis for expanding the frontiers of education.

The visit was facilitated by the Ministry and China International Publishing Group International Training Centre, a Beijing-based training institute and was sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China and the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China.