The Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George, says the government is shifting the focus of the One Million Coders Programme towards job creation, targeting 100,000 digitally enabled jobs over the next two years.
He said the ministry was partnering with industry stakeholders, including the Business Outsourcing Association of Ghana (BOSAG), to link graduates to employment opportunities locally and internationally.
Sam George disclosed this during a two-day monitoring visit to rural telephony sites and the coding programme in the Ashanti Region.
He said the government was committed to training one million Ghanaians in digital skills within four years but stressed the need to ensure graduates could secure jobs after completing their training.
“BOSAG will tell you they don’t have the skilled workforce. Now we are filling in that gap by providing them our graduates. We’re providing them the database of our graduates,” he said.
The minister noted that the initiative was developing a skilled workforce, including data annotators, to support businesses in the business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) sectors.
He also announced plans to extend the programme to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, technical universities and universities.
At the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), he said, the number of laptops allocated under the programme had increased from 500 to 2,500, with participation expanding to final-year students to improve their employment prospects.
Sam George added that the ministry would intensify public education to increase patronage at community ICT centres.
However, underused laptops could be reassigned to schools within the same communities to ensure the equipment was put to better use.
On rural connectivity, he said the ministry was monitoring telecommunications infrastructure projects being undertaken with MTN and Telecel to improve network access in underserved communities.
He cited approximately 800 new sites under MTN and 1,960 under Telecel, noting that some had been completed while others were still under construction or awaiting commissioning.
The minister said he was personally testing call quality and internet access during the visits, with feedback being sent to technical teams at the National Communications Authority (NCA) to help assess the impact of the investments.
