The Ghana Education Service (GES) will be piloting an E-learning concept to provide students teaching lessons at home.

The closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country has affected the academic calendar while school children from primary level to the tertiary level remain at home and awaiting President Nana Akufo-Addo to lift the restrictions for academic work to continue.

The West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) have also been suspended in 5 of the countries that the examination is held, that's Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Liberia.

However, in order to keep academic activities ongoing and ensure students are actively learning in their various homes, the GES has adopted measures to bridge the gap.

Speaking in an interview on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Deputy Director General of the Ghana Education Service, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh disclosed that the Education Service is embarking on an online learning where students in both public and private schools can be engaged.

He told host Kwami Sefa Kayi that the Service has opened a website www.icampusgh.com where students can log in with their particulars and find learning materials as well as get interactive with teachers across the nation.

Noting that about 90,000 people have already logged into the website, Dr. Bempah Tandoh expounded that the website will enable the students to achieve the same goal they would have if they were physically present in their classrooms.

He also revealed that apart from using electronic means of teaching and learning, the GES is also using traditional means and that beginning on Tuesday, 5th May, 2020, lessons will also be held on both Televison and radio for school children in the comfort of their homes.

He said parents and their children can now watch Ghana Learning TV on GTV, GO TV, DSTV while the GES engages more TV networks in the country to assist their initiative.

Dr. Bempah Tandoh added that all avenues are being exploited to ensure that students become active in their studies during this closure of schools and lockdown period in the nation.

He further applauded teachers for taking steps to get academically interactive with students at home and was hopeful academic work will soon return to normal.

"Whether school will be opened or not, we will make content available for the children to use radio or TV and internet to study at home on May 5th . . . It is true that we are not in normal times, so it's difficult to have interactive teaching but what the teachers [head teachers, head masters] are doing now is to utilize WhatsApp. So, most of our teachers have set up WhatsApp groups with the parents for them to interact with the teachers on WhatsApp if they don't understand what they watch on TV. I am also informed that some parents give their phones to the children to interact with the teachers on WhatsApp.

"We are setting up parallel classrooms and when it's ready and goes live, it make online interaction possible. Some of the teachers are also using Zoom to contact the school children. We applaud the teachers for not slacking during this Covid-19 pandemic but rather ensuring they adopt measures for interactive lessons to be held irrespective," he said.