Barclays Bank of Ghana Limited, has donated £20,000 for the purchase of Information Communication Technology (ICT) equipment to ICT education in two deprived schools, Old Lashibi TMA 1 and 2 schools in the Greater Accra region.
A total of 420 primary school pupils will benefit from the programme, expected to be implemented by C&J, a community-based non-governmental organization (NGO), in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service.
The Managing Director of Barclays Ghana, Mr. Benjamin Dabrah, said the donation was in line with the bank's "Banking for Brighter Futures" pillar under the bank's Community Investment programme.
He said the other two pillars of the community investment programme were "Looking after local Communities", and "Charity begins at work".
Mr. Dabrah said "Barclays is committed to supporting the government to develop the country, especially deprived communities, through the provision of financial and material support. We have supported communities in which we live and work for ninety two years in education, health, and entrepreneurial development. We are more challenged to increase our efforts in the coming years especially in education," he added.
He said the C&J ICT project was designed to provide ICT education in government approved public schools and pupils from beneficiary schools would be transported by the NGO to the ICT Resources Centres to attend lessons.
Mr Dabrah said though ICT education formed part of the school curriculum of public schools, the lack of facilities has made it difficult for the subject to be taught efficiently.
He explained that Barclays was supporting the Ministry of Education to make ICT education accessible to disadvantaged schools.
C&J organizes periodic outreach programmes, mainly in ICT based on approved syllabus by the Ghana Education Service.
The NGO undertakes this through research to identify disadvantaged children and offer ICT education to them without any cost.
Barclays is committed to the development of education in Ghana especially in less endowed areas, and will ensure that it collaborates with relevant institutions to achieve that goal.