The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Juaben in the Ashanti Region, Mr Omane Aboagye, has encouraged students to take advantage of the ICT program introduced by the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation to broaden their scope of knowledge in modern technology.
He stressed the importance of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and Cyber Security in the day-to-day operations of entrepreneurs as well as building successful businesses online.
The MCE was speaking on behalf of the Deputy Minister responsible for Communication and Digitalisation and MP for Juaben Constituency, Mrs. Ama Pomaa Boateng at a program organized by the Ministry of Communication (MoCD) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MoE); Ghana Education Service (GES) and Huawei Technologies Ghana at Juaben SHS.
Mr. Aboagye admonished the students to take a keen interest in acquiring ICT skills to participate in e-Commerce and choose their career paths that would make them become globally competitive within the digital space.
He said, the digital space grants women the opportunity to learn and work remotely at their convenience.
The MCE acknowledged the fact that, though the ICT space is male-dominated, girls could venture into that space as long as they were prepared to learn.
To address the gender digital gap, Mr Omane indicated that the Ministry had implemented the Girls-In-ICT program with the aim of providing the basic ICT skills and to also encourage more girls to take career paths in ICT as well motivating girls and women in the usage securely.
In all One Thousand Four Hundred and Forty-Four ladies were educated on the ten common cyber security, information security, and Date privacy.
They were also enlightened on top ten common cyber security threats that are often exposed to on the internet.
These include, Malware attack, Phishing Password attack, Man-in-the-middle attack, Distributed Denial-of-service attack Drive-by-download attack, Malvertising, Rogue software attack and Businesses Email Compromise attack.
As part of the strategies to ascertain the knowledge of the students in the ICT, the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation officials conducted spot quizzes and gave out cups, pens, diaries and t-shirts as prizes for those who got it right.
Madam Josephine Opuni Boakye, Headmistress of Juaben Senior High School (SHS), commended the MCE, MP as well the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation for the girls in ICT initiative.
She was confident that with such intervention, Ghana was on course to produce more female experts in ICT.
The Girls in ICT Program (SHS) focuses on Cyber Security and Data Privacy. It is aimed at encouraging young girls to stay safe on the internet.
The Girls in ICT Program is an initiative of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) aimed at encouraging young girls to take up career courses in ICT.
Girls in ICT; Accessing ICT Safely.