Ghanaian teacher goes viral with ‘blackboard PC’

A teacher from Ghana has received worldwide praise after a photo of him showing his students how to use Microsoft Word on a blackboard went viral.

Richard Appiah Akoto, who teaches information and computer technology (ICT), shared the photo of himself using multi-coloured chalk to recreate a computer screen as his students copied it into their notebooks.

“Teaching of ICT in Ghana’s school is very funny,” he said in the Facebook post alongside the photos.

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For the past six years, Akto has taught at Betenase M/A Junior High School, a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of Ghana’s second-largest city, Kumasi, says Quartz. The school does not have any computers “even though since 2011, 14 and 15-year-olds are expected to write and pass a national exam...with ICT being one of the subjects.”

The original Facebook post quickly gained traction on other social media until someone tweeted the photo to Microsoft. The company said it would send Akoto a computer as well as access to their “professional development resources.”

Many people responded to Microsoft’s decision saying that the multi-billion-dollar company should do more to help Akoto’s students.

Microsoft said it “is speaking with him and the school about what more can be done for him and his students”.

Quartz points out that Akoto’s situation is symptomatic of an “under-resourced dysfunctional public school system”.

Throughout Africa, many economically disadvantaged families “are forced to choose private schools over free public primary schools” due to a lack of resources. In Ghana, there have been calls for a more equal distribution of educational resources to help rural schools like Betenase which “struggle with infrastructure and teaching logistics challenges.”