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The Essikado-Ketan Constituency has been considered by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), to have two Cyber laboratories constructed in the coming months, Member of Parliament for the area, Joe Ghartey has hinted.

The Cyber laboratories will add on to an existing facility which was built by Hon. Joe Ghartey at Ketan, in 2008.

The success of the Ketan ICT Center, according to the Member of Parliament, provided a model for the establishment of ICT labs across the country.

“The authorities say that this is the best center in Ghana. They have even replicated the model that we use here nationwide. And now they call it the ‘Ketan Model’, and that is the model they use in various ICT centers to train the children” he told Heads of Schools and teachers in a briefing at the center.

The Ketan ICT Center offers training at no cost to users or students. Course modules according to the managers of the facility, adapts Information Technology and integrate them into any teaching subject offered at various educational level, particularly for the basic schools.

Hon Joe Ghartey argued that the establishment of these ‘satellite’ facilities [Cyber labs] provide an equal and accessible means for all schools within a catchment area, to acquire IT training. He justified it is ideal and most efficient, as compared to granting each school a few batch of computer sets, “which either gets broken down or stolen”.

“Through the assistance of the Metro Director of Education, we will bring all the other teachers in the other clusters here, to come and have a look at what is being done.

“It is possible four you to have a center to serve a cluster of schools, and it is a better model than having each school having its own set of computers” he explained.

As a proof of his unbridled support for building IT capabilities among younger generations, Mr. Ghartey donated a cash amount of GH5,000.00 to support the running of the Ketan ICT center, and thus promised to make available additional cash support when needed.

Metro Director of Education, Elizabeth Akuoko who received the cash donation on behalf of Ketan ICT Center, expressed her gratitude for the gesture. She remarked that the support granted by the legislator to the Ketan Sub-Metro over the years is immeasurable.

“This one is to the rescue, the desperation that the heads and myself have been through has not been easy… and as at today, will really go down in history, as a day when we were rescued” she said with excitement.

The Ketan ICT Center serves over 16 schools in the sub-metro. Center Coordinator for the Ketan ICT Center, Regina Farco promised to make the best of resources at their disposal to improve the learning of ICT among the school children.