The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES,) has expressed regret for the delay in putting out the academic calendar for pre-tertiary schools for 2022. He said the delay was for a good reason, assuring stakeholders that the calendar for the 2022 academic year would soon be announced. The Director-General was responding to concerns expressed by parents and other stakeholders on the delay in announcing the academic calendar for 2022 for basic and second cycle schools. Some stakeholders in the educational space have called on the management of education in the country to demonstrate their ability to run the sector as expected. They have expressed concern about the uncertainty of the academic calendar for the pre-tertiary schools in recent times They contended that currently, schools are unable to tell parents when the academic year will be beginning for basic and second cycle schools. Parents are worried that the current situation poses a challenge for them, particularly as ...

WhatsApp - Non-Contact Chat WhatsApp is one of the most widely used instant messaging services across the globe. Whether you’re texting a friend or creating a group chat with members of your family, It is generally the preferred app since almost everyone uses it. Apart from texting known people, you may encounter several instances where you have to message certain unsaved phone numbers via WhatsApp. I’ve had instances where delivery executives from courier companies have asked me to share my GPS location on WhatsApp so that they can navigate to my house easily. In such scenarios, a quick hack to message unsaved numbers on WhatsApp comes in handy. Ideally, I wouldn’t want to store someone’s number as a contact if I don’t know them personally or do not need to contact them more than once. Sharing my profile picture or status updates with a stranger is not really a wise thing to do, which is why we’re here to help you message unsaved phone numbers via your Android phone. Apa...

Dr. Alhassan Sulemana Anamzoya, a senior lecturer at the Sociology Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, has written to the Minister of Tourism, Art and Culture, protesting and requiring the Honourable Minister to stop the premiering of a film, titled "SAVANNAH".  In a letter, with the heading, "DAGBON WOULD NOT SIT DOWN FOR THE WORLD TO BE MISINFORMED BY VENUS FILMS Production", Mr. Anamzoya wrote, "My attention, and that of numerous Dagombas, has been drawn to an excerpt of a movie (yet to be premiered) entitled, "SAVANNAH" being circulated in the social media... The production house is Venus Films Production. As a responsible Dagomba, it would be a disservice to my kingdom, and to audience globally if I do not add my voice to protest this attempt at misinforming the public, Ghana and beyond." He added,"From the excerpts in the movie "SAVANNAH", three things stand out. The first is the title of the movie, "SAVANNAH...

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The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) has held two separate Regional Validation workshops in Accra and Kumasi to engage key stakeholders to validate its Operations Manual before final approval. Addressing the Accra version of the workshop, the National Coordinator of GSFP, Mrs. Gertrude Quashigah said that the Operations Manual is what guides the activities of school feeding at the National, Regional, District and Community levels. She noted that, some sections of the old Manual and its technical annexes needed to be revised to reflect the current best practices, hence the need for GSFP and its partner, UNICEF-Ghana to engaged a Consultant in February, 2020 to review the existing Operational manual.  Three stakeholder consultative workshops, Mrs. Quashigah noted were therefore held in Accra, Koforidua and Kumasi between August and September, 2020 with the Consultant, after which an Operations Manual Review Committee was constituted to discuss and review the work done by the Con...

The first ever National Standardised Test for Basic 4 pupils has started late across the country. Apart from the late start of the examination at a few centres in the Northern Region, no major irregularity was recorded an hour into the examination.  A total of 561,595 Primary 4 Public School pupils are writing the examination today, Friday, December 17, 2021 involving 15,911 schools in 2,609 Examination centres nationwide. An average of 200 pupils per centre. The Director General, Prof Kwasi Opoku Amankwa monitored the conduct of the test in some Districts in the Greater Accra Region. The test, according to the Ministry of Education, is to help generate data on the performance of pupils in English Language and Mathematics and also to know the performance of students with regards to the new curriculum introduced. Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, at an earlier press conference, indicated that the test will help "identify what the learning gaps are that need to be address...

The Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, witnessed the distribution of Laptops to teachers at O'Reily Senior High School in Accra on Monday. The distribution train made a stop at the O'reily SHS amidst cheers and excitement from teachers. In presenting the devices, the Director General discounted the perception that the TM 1 Laptops are of poor quality simply because they were not coming from any of the known brands of computers. On the cost of the Laptop as being expensive, the DG said "even the simplest smartphone does not cost less than GHc 500.00" and that if a "teacher is parting away with such an amount to own a Laptop, that cannot be described as shortchanging the teacher." The Deputy Director General in charge of Quality & Access, Dr. Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, used the opportunity to educate the teachers on the use of the Laptop and its content.  He added that the Laptops were preloaded with teaching re...

Playing Android games on Windows has been possible for about as long as Android has existed, thanks to projects like  Android x86  and  Bluestacks . More recently, Microsoft has been building an Android app layer directly into Windows, with software downloadable from the Amazon Appstore (or you can sideload apps and games). Now it seems Google is finally ready to create its own mechanism for playing Android games on PCs. Thursday night was The Game Awards, which normally doesn’t have much in the way of Android news, but Google made a surprise announcement. The company revealed it will bring a Google Play Games app to Windows PCs sometime in 2022. Greg Hartrell, Google’s product director of games on Android and Google Play, told The Verge, “This Google built product brings the best of Google Play Games to more laptops and desktops, and we are thrilled to expand our platform for players to enjoy their favorite Android games even more.” Google isn’t saying much right now abo...

The National Teaching Council on Thursday, December 2, 2021 held its 7th Awards Committee Meeting at the MPLAZA Hotel in Accra to review the 2021 GTLE II results before its published on Monday, December 6, 2021.  The 7th Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) took place on 25th and 26th October, 2021 in 20 centres across the country.  In all 4929 candidates registered for all the three subjects – Numeracy, Literacy and Essential Professional Skills. There were also 8219 re-sit candidates bringing the total number of candidates to 13148 who wrote the examination at 20 centres across the country. The 7th Awards Committee Meeting brought together Chief Examiners who gave reports on the performance of candidates who sat for the 2021 Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE) II. In all, they commended some of the candidates for a good work done while decrying poor performance of many other candidates.  The Registrar of the National Teaching Council, Dr. Christian Addai –...

Telegram: Protected Content and Delete by Date After rolling out Telegram 8.2 just last week, Telegram is back again with a brand new update for its messaging service. Telegram 8.3 is here and it includes several new enhancements such as Protected Content, the ability to easily delete old chat history, global themes, a new option to post anonymously in public groups and more. To protect your content from being copied by others, Telegram 8.3 is adding a new option called “Restrict Saving Content,” which restricts users from forwarding messages and media to other groups. The tool also prevents screenshots and downloading of media. To enable content protection in your group or channel, go to the Group or Channel Info page > Group / Channel Type > Restrict Saving Content. Video Player Video PlayerVideo Player Next up, Telegram 8.3 adds a new button that lets you quickly link a desktop device. There’s also a new option to automatically log out devices after a certain peri...

File photo of students writing exam The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has officially released the provisional results of candidates for the 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). In a statement on Wednesday, the Council’s Head of Public Affairs, Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, disclosed that the entire results of some 3,667 students have been withheld. According to her, the move is to facilitate the investigation into various cases of examination malpractice detected during and after papers. “The scripts of candidates from 194 schools in certain subjects have also been withheld and are being scrutinised. “The withheld results of candidates may be cancelled or released based on the outcome of the investigations,” she explained. For those whose results have been published, Mrs Teye-Cudjoe said the Council will provide login details to Heads of schools to enable them to print their candidates’ results. She also noted that the results h...

Gmail app Icon Back in September, Google announced it would be allowing users to make calls directly from the Gmail app on iOS and Android. Initially, users could create a Google Meet link in the app and share it with others via the service of their choice. They could also join meetings created by others through the mobile app. Google is now making it easier to start audio and video calls by adding direct call buttons in the Gmail app. Google has announced in a blog post (via The Verge) that it’s now rolling out the new audio and video call buttons in the Gmail mobile app. You can find the added buttons in the conversations you access from the Chat tab. If you can’t see them just yet, make sure you’re using the latest version of the app. Google also mentions that this feature could take more than 15 days to reach all users, with the gradual rollout starting today. This new feature is available to all Google users — Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and Business customers, a...

The current state of the new lorry terminal in Tamale A GH¢1.9 million bus terminal constructed in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, to ease congestion at the main lorry terminal has been abandoned and left to deteriorate about five years after completion. The project was constructed by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) in 2015 with funding from the World Bank under the Urban Development Grant (UDG). It was furnished with auxiliary facilities such as parking lodges, drivers resting rooms, washrooms, passengers stands and security lodge. Located at Datoyili in the central business district on the Tamale—Kintampo highway, the terminal was constructed to relocate all long-distance vehicles from the central business district. The current terminal serves buses that travel to all parts of the country from Tamale. State of facility The new facility appears to be deteriorating, with paints peeling off the structure while parts of the ceilings had collapsed apparently ...

This won't affect existing chats, but it's a useful feature for those of you out there who want some more privacy. Last year, WhatsApp introduced a new privacy-centric feature that allowed you to make your messages disappear. For it to work, though, you needed to manually activate the feature within all your chats. Today, however, WhatsApp disappearing messages can now be set as the permanent default for all your one-on-one chats.  That means every time you start a new chat, your messages will auto-delete after a set period of time without you needing to think about it. Unfortunately, this does not work for existing chats. They will need to be manually deleted. We have instructions below on how to turn this feature on. Once it’s on, your new one-on-one chats will have an alert that says the disappearing messages feature is on and that it’s the default.  This is to alert your chatting partner of the feature. Obviously, if you want to turn it off for a specific chat...

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Deputy Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ms Ama Pomaa Boateng The Fraud Control Dashboard (FCD) launched by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in April 2021 has so far aided in the blacklisting and blocking of 23,000 subscriber identification module (SIM) cards and mobile devices that were being used to perpetrate cyber fraud in the country. This was disclosed by the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful today at the launch of the 10th anniversary of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications today in Accra. In an address read on her behalf by the Deputy Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ms Ama Pomaa Boateng, the Minister congratulated the efforts of the Chamber in helping the government to establish the Central Equipment Identity Management System which was used to set up the FCD. "When I spoke at the Chamber Mobile Technology for Development Conference in April this year, I congratulated the Chamber for complement...

How to check if your iPhone has NSO Group Pegasus software In the ongoing battle between Apple and the Pegasus spyware, the iPhone maker said it was suing the NSO Group -- the maker of surveillance software. Apple said it was seeking to protect its users from "further abuse and harm" with a permanent injunction to ban NSO Group from using the iPhone maker's hardware, software or devices, Apple said in a release. The spyware can be remotely installed on a target's iPhone or iPad, granting the person or organization who installed it full access to the device and all the data it holds -- without the owner taking any action. That includes text messages, emails and even recording phone calls. Pegasus was originally designed and is marketed by its creator the NSO Group to monitor criminals and terrorists. Apple with an iPhone security patch in iOS 14.8 in September closed a vulnerability reportedly exploited by invasive spyware built by NSO Group. While's t...

Fully renovated Dormitory block for the Cabral and Gbanzaba Houses by Parliament John Mahama In a Facebook post, President John Mahama announced he handed over to his alma mater, Ghana Senior High School, popularly known as Ghanasco, a fully renovated Dormitory block for the Cabral and Gbanzaba Houses.  "Cabral House was my home during my days at Ghanasco, and it was a nostalgic feeling returning and reconnecting with some of my mates and seniors on Friday.", John Mahama said in the post.  He further said, "Renovating and modernizing the building that houses the Cabral and Gbanzaba Houses, when the state of the structure was brought to my attention, is my hearty contribution to improving conditions for learning for our children." Behind every successful man is a woman is the adage.  John Mahama further wrote," My wife, Lordina, also sponsored the repainting and replacement of the nets at the girls dormitory, known as the Lordina Block." Ghana Se...

Mr Isaac Bampoe Addo (middle), Chairman of the Forum and Executive Secretary of the Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana, addressing the forum. With him are Mr King Ali Awudu (right), President, Coalition of Concerned Teachers Association, and Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo (left), President of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association and member of the Forum. Picture: ESTHER ADJEI A forum of public sector associations and unions has accused the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) of attempts to deliberately delay the payment of past credit to members. The past credit is the contribution workers made to SSNIT before the coming into force of the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766), which brought about the three-tier pension scheme. Eleven years after the three-tier pension scheme became operational, SSNIT is alleged to have been holding on to part of tier-two funds in the form of past credit. This is after the National Labour Commiss...

  Mr Abdulai Mutawakil, Northern Region Manager of DVLA The Northern Regional Office of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has been allegedly being extorting GH¢ 71.36 from motorbike owners who willingly go to their office to register their motorbikes in the Tamale Metropolis. Motorbikes, impounded by the DVLA, in collaboration with the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service and the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), their owners are also allegedly being extorted GH¢ 101.36. This extortion, if really true, is a mockery of the exposé done by Tiger Eye on the corruption at the DVLA. This blog know, the exposé hasn’t been a deterrent, because most of the officers caught in the exposé, were only transferred and that may have embolden them to perpetuate more corruption. The Northern Regional Manager of the DVLA, Mr. Mutawakilu Abdulai, has been holding interviews with media in Tamale metropolis and beyond on his efforts to enforce ...

Dr Bossman Eric Asare — Deputy Chairperson of the EC in charge of Corporate Services As part of preparations for its voter registration exercise next year, the Electoral Commission (EC) is proposing the adoption of the Ghana Card as the only proof of citizenship. In line with that, the commission has submitted a comprehensive document to all the political parties for their review and suggestions. Yesterday, the EC held an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting to discuss the document further. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) was, however, not present at the meeting. The Deputy Chairperson of the EC in charge of Corporate Services, Dr Bossman Eric Asare, told the Daily Graphic that the political parties submitted their inputs at yesterday’s meeting. He said when IPAC met next week, the stakeholders would review the final document before it would be submitted to the Office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for further review, after which it would ...