Minister of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George says the recently launched One Million Coders Program designed to provide at least one million Ghanaians with relevant digital skills over the next four years, will be made compulsory for students of all university students in the country. Â
He made the announcement during an exclusive interview with Bernard Avle on Channel1 TV’s The Point of View.
The Minister said “through the intervention of the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, I have had a call conference with Vice Chancellors of all public universities to discuss, among other things, how to ensure that every university student takes a course in one of the modules of the program before they graduate – and that will be made compulsory for all 478,000 public university students in the country.”
According to him, currently, there is collaborate program at the University of Ghana called the Digital Youth Village which is actually a centre of excellence in AI, adding that he has so far received over 40 proposals from various departs in public universities on how to partner with the One Million Coders Program to train students.
He said over time, even private universities in the country will be brought onboard to ensure that no one is left behind, adding that with the yearly streams of students entering both public and private universities, the program will most likely beat the one million target over the next four years.
Sam George said the Ministry will support the universities with the logistic to be able to deliver on the One Million Coders Program modules.
Civil Servants
Sam George also stated that he will also meet with the Head of Ghana’s Civil Service and have a conversation about how every institution under the civil service could take one module or the other for reskilling of all civil servants in the country to ensure that they are made ready for the job requirements of the digital economy.
“Gone were the days when people just included their proficiencies in Microsoft Word and Excel on their CVs to prove that they are digital natives – today everyone is required to be an AI native as a basic requirement for jobs in the digital economy so civil servants need to be reskilled,” he said.
Community ICT Centres
In addition to tertiary institutions and civil service, the Minister said the 280 community Innovation Centres and about seven functional Regional Innovation Centres will also be deployed as training centres for the One Million Coders Program to ensure that even persons who are not formerly educated are provided with digital skills to either take advantage of jobs in the digital economy or become entrepreneurs in their own communities.
He said the plan is to have a cohort in every metropolitan, municipal and district assembly to ensure that they train people in Data Governance, Cybersecurity and other relevant modules that will be needed to ensure that public data is managed and handled efficiently.
“An institution like the National Health Insurance Authority, for instance, needs to be very Data Governance and Cybersecurity sensitive because they collect peoples data on the regular and they have offices in every district but as of today they don’t have data protection and cybersecurity experts in the districts. The same can be said for all the assemblies – they need these critical skills to operate more efficiently,” he stated.
More Modules in the PipelineÂ
The One Million Coders Program, launched by President John Dramani Mahama recently, was in fulfilment of a manifesto promise to, in the first 120 days of his presidency, initiate a digital skills training program for one million Ghanaians with his second four-year term.
The President launched the first phase of the program, which is a pilot in four regional capital – Accra, Kumasi, Sunyani and Tamale with six modules for 520 students.
The six modules, which come in beginner, intermediary and advanced levels, include Certified Cybersecurity Professional, Certified Network Support Technician, Certified Data Protection Manager, Certified Data Protection Expert, Certified Data Protection Officer, Certified Data Protection Professional, and Data Analyst Associate.
Each of the courses will have coding as a fundamental program, and there will also be an Elective Coding Course to be run as part of the entire program.
Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence is leading the content creation and training under the pilot, before it goes nationwide overtime.
But the Minister said there are ongoing talks with tech giants like Google, Amazon, Meta, MTN Group and others to run additional modules, and very soon the modules will increase to about 20 as it goes nationwide.
He said the Ministry has, for instance, signed an MoU with the MTN Group to bring their second AI lab in Africa to Ghana – and that will be a centre of excellence to run more modules.
So far, about 92,000 Ghanaians have put in applications to participate in the program. More people will have the opportunity to be enrolled after the pilot with just 520 people. Person will wish to apply can do so at One Million Coders – Ghana.
Sam George is confident that if the president finds him worthy and he remains the sector Minister for four years “I can assure you that we will even beat the one million target and at the end of the term I will show Ghanaians actual names of persons that benefitted from the program in specific institutions and communities across the country.”
Job and Entrepreneurial Opportunities
The Minister said apart from the existing jobs in various government institutions and in corporate organizations for the beneficiaries of the program, government is also in working on the Start-up Bill, which will be the legal basis for the state to support digital start-up entrepreneurs, particularly those trained under the One Million Coders Program.
He said government’s US$50 million Fintech Fund will also come on stream to support young start-up from incubator through accelerator programs to give them the needed support to scale to market.
Sam George said he has also had a meeting with the Business Processes Outsourcing (BPO) community in Ghana, with the view to making Ghana a BPO hub, particularly under the 24-hour economy, and that will provide jobs for a lot of the beneficiaries of the One Million Coders Program.
