Govt commended for promoting digitisation

A Counselling Psychologist at the Dormaa-Ahenkro campus of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Prince Kwame Affum, has commended the government for investing and promoting digitisation to enhance the country’s development.

He said it was heartwarming that digitisation had been employed in all aspects of human lives and activities such as the fields of agriculture, education, processing, engineering and domestic activities among others.

Mr Affum, who is also a patron of the UENR Peer Counsellors, was speaking at the launch of Silicon Class (SC) Digitrain, a digital platform introduced to equip students with skills development through digital training at Dormaa-Ahenkro in the Bono Region.

SC Digitrain

The SC Digitrain is a skill training programme initiated by the executives of the Dormaa-Ahenkro campus of the UENR Peer Counsellors, in partnership with the Silicon Class Studios to train students in developing digital skills.

The programme has been initiated with the goal of shaping students to fit into the modern society and to reduce unemployment rate after completion.

This year, the university intends to focus on photography, basic photo shooting with DSLR cameras, videography, basic video shooting skills, documentaries and personality skills to enable the beneficiaries to have the ability to speak on set or in front of cameras.

Others are photo and video editing, drone piloting, graphic designing, video live streaming and professional media among others.

Technology

Mr Affum explained that technology had come to stay, saying, “Like it or not, it has become one of the most embraced cultures in human history.”

He expressed concern that Africa seemed to be lagging behind considering the level of digitisation in other continents.

Mr Affum said equipping students with digital skills would increase work output and productivity in the various facets of the society.

He said it should not come as a big surprise that UENR’s Peer Counsellors in the Schools of Agriculture, Technology and Geo-Sciences would come out with that innovative blueprint idea.

“Ours is a school of science and technology and we cannot speak of science and technology without digital skill acquisition,” he said.

Relevant skills

Mr Affum said the initiative, if well patronised and supported, would imbibe in students relevant skills and values needed to survive in the 21st century.

He expressed the hope that the initiative would equip the students with entrepreneurial skills and make them more dependent on their own potential while establishing enterprises for themselves.

Mr Affum said it would also help in integrating technology in their agricultural and planning activities.

Add advantage

The President of the Dormaa-Ahenkro campus of the UENR Peer Counsellors, Peter Asante Addo, said the SC Digitrain was an added advantage since it focused on building students for schoolwork and life after school.

Mr Addo said the programme, in subsequent years, would focus on developing networking, digital marketing, programming, coding and development of websites, mobile apps and other practical courses to help students tap into the digitalisation agenda to better their lives.

He said the acquisition of technological skills would enable the students to create jobs to generate income to take care of their needs while in school.

Mr Addo said SC Digitrain was also aimed at training students to become leading experts and business owners such as Jumia, Amazon, E-bay and Walmart among others.

He said they needed gadgets and possibly a studio to help run the programme successfully and conveniently.

For his part, a Junior Assistant Registrar at the Centre for Students’ Skills Enhancement of UENR, David S. Yirenkyi, explained that the world had moved to digitalisation and no country could ran away from that fact.