Retired lawyer and senior partner of Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah, Kojo Bentsi-Enchill, has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to fully incorporate Information & Communication Technology (ICT) into all of forms and levels of education to prepare the learning population for the future.
In the view of the legal luminary, technology has not been an essential component of education in Ghana at all levels for a myriad of reasons.
Proficiency in the use of modern technological resources, he said, has proven to be a challenge for many because of a lack of access and the fact that internet connectivity is also not necessarily stable and expensive, making it more of a luxury than a necessity for many.
According to Bentsi-Enchill, the preferred mode of teaching and learning in Ghana has always involved physical contact in varying degrees, with legal education not an exception.
With the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the closing down of all educational institutions to halt the spread of the virus in Ghana, Bentsi-Enchill, noted that there have been attempts at transitioning to online teaching by almost all Law Faculties and the Ghana School of Law with varying degrees of success.
This he said, has exposed a worrying lack of preparedness for such a sudden transition, owing to the fact that online teaching and learning is not incorporated in, or necessarily thought of as a substitute to, or compliment of the traditional mode of teaching and learning.
The Forum
The eminent Ghanaian jurist aggregated his concerns when he delivered via Zoom, the fifth lecture of the fourteen (14) week-long “Law and Ethics Web Series”, under the theme, “Leveraging COVID-19 to deliver Technology-Based Learning into the Future”, on Wednesday the June 3 2020.
The online seminar is organized jointly by the African Centre on Law and Ethics (ACLE) and the African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ), both based at the GIMPA Faculty of Law.
Institutional Reforms
In his presentation, Bentsi-Enchill, recommended technological reforms for all academic institutions in the country and urged them to embrace the use of ICT in how they deliver their mandate to the studying population of the country.
“The pandemic has caused everyone to move forward. I am sure, and let us assume that there is no help coming from anywhere. Let us examine self-help. I believe that no institution should stay the same after the necessary advances that have been forced upon them by the need to respond to the lockdown and the social distancing. Every institution should be fighting to tap the large market for online education” Bentsi-Enchill stated.
