Eyram Tawia, the CEO and Co-founder of Leti Arts has emphasised the importance of integrating localised educational technology and gamification into Ghana’s education system to enhance student engagement.
Speaking on Ed Tech Monday with Nathan Quao, on the topic “EdTech and Gamification: Enhancing Student Engagement using Interactive Learning Solutions,” Tawia highlighted the transformative power of interactive learning.
Drawing parallels with popular games like Minecraft, developed by Microsoft, and Roblox, where children immerse themselves in virtual worlds, Mr Tawia, stated that when studies are integrated into education, it changes the psychological mindset towards the subject they are learning.
“Just nearly creating excitement for the child changes his psychological mindset towards the topic that you are teaching the child.
“When you look at Minecraft, was built by Microsoft but how to localise it in our environment, how do we build a local environment within this Minecraft and create a story within them to explore or when you see kids playing Roblox, and they are competing with their friends in people’s virtual world. So, we now have to teach the kids that; you can play the games and learn. Yet you can also create these games,” he stated.
Additionally, Mr Tawia praised the efforts of tertiary institutions and clubs like the Ghana Code Club for fostering a gaming ecosystem that encourages coding and game development.
However, he stressed the need for localisation.
“…It is good now we have some tertiary schools who are helping the ecosystem for people to create these games. we have these gaming clubs; Ghana Code Club and some are teaching code, they are all good. But in doing that we have to try to localise it.”
Priscilla Adjei-Mensah, a Mental and Wellbeing Specialist, who was also a panellist on the show explained that over the years, the attention span of children has reduced from 30 mins to about 10 minutes post-COVID.
She explained that this affected how long a child can pay attention in class in the current education structure.
“Gamification has a lot of benefits when it comes to child education…young people have the influx of information overload and having very short video content which is streamed on a daily basis, so the impact of TikToks, YouTube shorts or videos that are very short spaced has decreased the attention span. So, imagine having a child sit in a classroom for about four hours, after 10 minutes, the attention span is gone” she added.
Maximus Ametorgoh, the founder and CEO of ESports Academy, added that given the rate at which the gaming industry is growing in Ghana, it is time that the government provides a policy direction to make the industry an alternative method for teaching and learning.
“We need policy direction; from game development to publishing, to the infrastructure and to the fact that we need to adopt it as a methodology in learning at various levels of education” he added.
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