Introduction

The vision of the Robert Patrick Baffour Foundation is to be a leading organization in Ghana utilizing interventions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and research to advance sustainable economic and social development in the community and ultimately, at the national levels.

The Foundation aims to create a future where underserved children especially girls excel in STEM, and are proficient in IT skills to develop them into future leaders with advanced knowledge, integrity and discipline. Specifically, the Foundation in partnership with both international and local STEM-oriented organizations develop intramural and extramural programs and provides support for ICT education in underserved Junior High Schools in Ghana.

Approach

The strategy is to organize IT boot camps for students in their schools. The Foundation has embarked upon a pilot STEM boot camp to teach children coding, web design and other basic skills of computer programming. This activity is being piloted at the RP Baffour Anglican JHS in Elmina and will be expanded to similar schools in both urban and rural communities, initially, in the Central Region, Ghana

Pilot STEM Boot Camp Project

The Foundation in collaboration with USA-based non-governmental organizations; IT Afro Connect (Papa Essilfie Andoh), Newbod Outreach (Kwame Bowen), Pipins Project (Yvonne K. David) Stream Global Stream (Nikia Richards and Niamani Knight), established an ICT laboratory at the RP Baffour Anglican JHS in Elmina and equipped it with 30 computers and the relevant software for live streaming and STEM education. (https://gnewsprime.com/elmina-anglican-school-gets-computers-for-the-first-time/). The RP Baffour Anglican JHS has not had any computers for its ICT classes since the subject was introduced into the WAEC Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) curriculum. Neither did it have a dedicated ICT laboratory.

The Foundation piloted its initial STEM programme using the boot camp approach in January 2024 with an initial enrollment of 36 participants comprising 61% girls and 39% boys. The mean age of the girls is 13.8 years and 14.1 years for the boys. The distribution according the class are 13, 14 and 8 in JHS 1, JHS 2 and JHS 3, respectively. The camp, which is run on Saturdays and Sundays so as not to disrupt the school’s official curriculum.