Gold Fields Supports Education in Atuabo with $68,000 Smart Lab and Innovation Centre

Gold Fields Ghana Foundation as part of its effort to promote Innovation through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, (STEM), at the Basic level has handed over an ultra-modern Smart Laboratory and Innovation Centre valued at US$68,000 to the New Atuabo Basic School in Tarkwa, Western Region.

The centre is well equipped to handle courses such as Introduction to Robotics and Coding with mBot; Introduction to Arduino Programming using Tinkercard and Physical Computing with Micro bits, among many other exciting programmes.

In his address during the handing over of the Smart Laboratory and Innovation Centre, the Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Gold Fields Ghana, Elliot Twum, noted that the centre will contribute to developing a generation of Ghanaian Artificial Intelligence innovators.

“I believe it will train generations of leaders for our country – Ghana. With the growing interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics, the Foundation set up a Smart Lab and Innovation Centre as a pilot project for advancing the integration of technology and digital tools into the teaching and learning experience.
This is referred to as Education 4.0 and it promotes learners’ independence as well as provides personalised learning.

“The Foundation invested over US$68,000 (sixty-eight thousand dollars) in this project, which is intended to serve students from Primary 5 to JHS 3 in the New Atuabo Community Basic School as well as other public and private schools in the community“, he stated.

Giving the rationale for building the Smart Lab and Innovation Centre, he said this is Gold Fields’ resource support to the Ghana Education Service’s Computational Thinking introduced in its curriculum for basic school education in 2022.

“In 2022 the Ghana Education Service (GES) introduced Computational Thinking as part of the curriculum for basic school education in Ghana. Unfortunately, a lot of the public basic schools in the country do not have the facilities to support the teaching and learning of the subject.

Teachers in some basic schools, especially schools located in smaller communities, depend solely on textbooks to teach this subject, with no practical aspect. This takes a lot away from the teaching and learning experience. Government alone cannot shoulder the responsibility of development. An economy such as ours may not be able to provide all public schools with the gadgets and resources required for the new age of education.

Corporate Ghana also has a critical role to play. It is to this end that the Foundation took the decision to pilot the Smart Lab and Innovation Centre concept in partnership with Coral Reef”, he explained.

The Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Gold Fields Ghana noted that the New Atuabo Smart Lab and Innovation Centre is fully equipped with 50 high performance tablets with a charging cabinet, 20 coding and robotics kits, two Lego Prime robotics kits, 10 Arduino kits, three Quest Virtual Reality headsets, two laptops for the instructors, a projector and a router for internet connectivity.“

The Deputy Western Regional Director of Education, Ellen Anti, while appreciating Gold Fields for the centre said it has come at the right time to fill a gap created in the teaching of IT.

“Teaching the subjects has become a herculean task for most facilitators since most basic school lack basic ICT equipment such as desktop computers, laptops, projectors and screens just mentioned a few learners are taught in the abstract manner which eventually impacts their performance negatively during the basic education certificate examination , during the Basic certificate education, it is on this call that I give good first Ghana foundation a resounding applause for such et a magnificent edifice to promote effective teaching of it and computing in the New Atuabo Basic school.”, she said.

In addition to helping teach the mandatory Computational Skills, the centre will also train pupils from all 10 basic schools in New Atuabo community, as well as any interested adults, inbasic robotics and AI at a fee.