Sharing Ideas: Presentation Day

Our kids’ presented their work to the class in teams. They each used PowerPoint slides they had designed on their facilitators’ laptops. All I can say is you should have been there!

While working with our kids, we discovered that some of them frequently use computers and were quite comfortable designing their slides. On the other hand, some kids had difficulty finding letters on the keyboard when typing. We asked whether the school had a computer laboratory and discovered that it did not.

This news was disconcerting because Junior High School (JHS) 3 students, (9th grade equivalent) need to take an entrance exam called the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to continue on to Senior High School (SHS). One of the core areas they are tested on is Information and Communication Technology which requires students to possess basic computer literacy to get a passing grade.

Without a computer lab, our kids may read and hear about how to create a Microsoft Word document. However, if they do not have access to computers elsewhere, they will not have the invaluable benefit of enforcing that lesson by creating a document on their own. Moreover, since their BECE results determine the kind of schools they can apply to, much like the SAT in the United States, our kids’ lack of computer access, through no fault of their own, influences their future education and employment prospects.