The Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George, has announced plans to create 100,000 digitally enabled jobs over the next two years as the government shifts the focus of its One Million Coders Programme from skills training to employment opportunities.
He said the government was working with businesses, including the Business Outsourcing Association of Ghana (BOSA), to connect trained beneficiaries to employment opportunities in business process outsourcing (BPO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and other digital services.
The minister disclosed this when he addressed the media at the end of the first day of his two days working tour of the Ashanti Region to inspect ongoing and completed projects under his ministry and assess the implementation of key government policies.
According to him, the initiative is intended to ensure that the One Million Coders Programme goes beyond training young people in digital skills to provide them with pathways into the job market.
Sam George explained that although the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had promised to train one million Ghanaians under the programme, President John Dramani Mahama had challenged the ministry to consider what would happen to beneficiaries after completing their training.
He said the President’s concern had prompted the ministry to develop a job creation component that would link trained participants to local and international employment opportunities.
“The next question he asks the ministry is, what happens after the training? Which means finding jobs. And so that’s what we started doing,” the minister said.
He noted that many international companies seeking to outsource digital services to Ghana required a skilled workforce, but businesses in the sector had identified the shortage of qualified personnel as a major constraint.
To address the gap, he said the ministry was building a pool of trained graduates and providing businesses with access to their profiles and skills databases to help them identify suitable candidates for specific assignments.
The minister cited data annotation as an example, explaining that a pool of 10,000 trained data annotators under the programme could enable outsourcing companies to pursue contracts requiring those skills and bring the resulting opportunities to Ghana.
He said the government was working with BOSA to connect businesses with the available talent, adding that the ministry was confident of making significant progress towards its target of 100,000 digitally enabled jobs within the next two years.
One Million Coders Programme expands to tertiary institutions
The minister also announced a strategic shift in the implementation of the One Million Coders Programme, with increased emphasis on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, technical universities and other tertiary institutions.
He said the programme, which initially focused substantially on community-based information and communications technology (ICT) centres, was expanding to institutional settings to reach more learners and improve the relevance of training to employment needs.
Mr. George cited the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) as an example of the expansion, revealing that the number of laptops allocated to the university had been increased from 500 to 2,500.
He said the ministry was also broadening its target group beyond first-year students to include final-year students, who were closer to entering the labour market.
According to him, the move would help prepare graduates for the world of work by equipping them with digital skills that could improve their employment prospects.
He stressed, however, that the expansion would not result in the closure of existing community-based ICT centres.
Rather, the ministry intended to retain those centres while creating additional avenues for training and reaching new groups of learners.
The minister expressed confidence that the expanded approach, together with intensified public education and outreach, would help the programme achieve its target of training one million Ghanaians within the government’s four-year term.
Government to repurpose underused laptops
As part of efforts to improve the use of public resources, Mr. George said the ministry was considering repurposing laptops from community ICT centres where patronage was low and deploying them to schools that lacked adequate computer facilities.
He explained that the decision was informed by monitoring exercises that had revealed instances where the number of available computers exceeded demand at some centres.
In such situations, he said, the ministry would rather make the devices available to junior and senior high schools in the same communities than allow them to remain unused.
“If there is a senior high school in the community that doesn’t have an ICT lab and you put in 20 laptops in there, you’ve set up. So it still benefits that community,” he said.
Mr. George maintained that the initiative was not intended to withdraw laptops from communities but to redistribute underutilised equipment to locations where it could serve more learners.
He added that students who benefited from the reallocation could also be enrolled in the One Million Coders Programme, helping to extend the programme’s reach and increase participation.
The minister described the approach as a more responsible use of government resources, arguing that ICT equipment should be deployed according to demand and the needs of prospective beneficiaries.
Nationwide monitoring to improve project delivery
Explaining the purpose of the regional tour, Mr. George said the exercise was part of the ministry’s monitoring and evaluation efforts to obtain first-hand information on the status of projects and programmes implemented by agencies under its supervision.
He said the tour had covered locations in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions before proceeding to the Eastern Region, with further engagements scheduled in the Volta Region during the week.
According to him, although the ministry receives reports from its field officers and technical teams, direct engagement with beneficiaries remains essential to determining whether projects are meeting their intended objectives.
He said interactions with the public during the Ashanti Region tour had helped the ministry identify implementation challenges and areas requiring improvement, some of which might not have been captured in routine reports.
Mr. George explained that the exercise would enable the ministry to identify what was working, address gaps and adapt programmes to improve service delivery.
He likened the process to a complete communication cycle, which requires not only the delivery of information but also responses and feedback from the people affected.
The minister said the monitoring exercise would therefore continue to play an important role in assessing the performance of agencies and ensuring that government interventions produced the intended benefits.
He added that the ministry would use the findings to refine implementation strategies and improve the delivery of policies and projects over the remaining period of the government’s mandate.
Telecommunications expansion under scrutiny
The minister also disclosed that the ministry was monitoring the rollout of new telecommunications sites being undertaken in collaboration with mobile network operators MTN Ghana and Telecel Ghana.
He said the initiative involved plans for approximately 800 new sites for MTN and 1,960 for Telecel, aimed at improving network coverage and connectivity across the country.
According to him, the sites were at different stages of implementation, with some completed, others still under construction and some being commissioned.
Mr. George said he had been testing mobile network performance during the tour by making calls and checking internet connectivity in communities along the route.
He explained that the observations were being shared with technical teams at the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) to support ongoing monitoring and assessment.
He said the exercise was intended to determine whether the expansion was translating into better connectivity for residents and to identify areas where additional interventions might be required.
The minister indicated that the government would continue monitoring the implementation of the telecommunications projects over the next two years to assess performance and optimise service delivery.
He stressed that the presence of new infrastructure alone would not be sufficient unless the projects improved the quality and accessibility of telecommunications services for the public.
Traditional authorities to support public education
Sam George further underscored the importance of traditional authorities in mobilising communities and supporting the implementation of government policies.
He said chiefs and other traditional leaders were critical stakeholders whose influence could help increase public awareness, encourage participation and improve the uptake of government programmes.
The ministry, he added, intended to intensify publicity through traditional media and social media to ensure that more Ghanaians understood the opportunities available under the One Million Coders Programme and other digital initiatives.
He said effective communication and sustained public engagement would be necessary to reach potential beneficiaries, particularly as the programme expanded beyond community ICT centres to schools and tertiary institutions.
The minister maintained that the combination of institutional partnerships, improved outreach and regular monitoring would help the government strengthen implementation and maximise the impact of its digital development initiatives.
Focus on outcomes and accountability
The Ashanti Region tour forms part of the ministry’s broader efforts to evaluate projects and programmes being implemented through its agencies and identify areas requiring adjustments.
Mr. George said the exercise was particularly important as the government approached 20 months in office, with several projects and policies already underway and others still being rolled out.
He cautioned that the full impact of some government policies might not be immediately visible because implementation often takes place in phases and requires time to produce measurable outcomes.
He said the ministry would continue to assess progress on the ground, gather feedback from beneficiaries and work with relevant agencies to resolve emerging challenges.
The minister reiterated that the ultimate objective was to ensure that government programmes delivered tangible benefits to citizens, particularly young people seeking digital skills and employment opportunities.
He said the ministry’s approach would increasingly be judged not only by the number of people trained or the infrastructure deployed but also by the extent to which those interventions improved access to digital services and created opportunities for economic advancement.
Source: www.kumasimail.com
