Elsie Effah Kaufmann Foundation launches free online platform to promote STEM education

The Elsie Effah Kaufmann Foundation and Dext Technology Limited have launched a free online platform to monitor, evaluate, and sustain Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) activities across the country.

To celebrate the first anniversary of the EEK Foundation on the theme of “Celebrating a year’s impact of practical science education in basic schools,” students and tutors from over a hundred schools performed practical and hands-on science tasks at the British Council.

The STEM Code platform is designed to provide basic schools with a unique code upon registration, where various practical science tasks can be performed and assessed, and points awarded by officials from the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

With the support of Dext Technology Limited, students and tutors performed various STEM exercises using the globally acclaimed Science Set.

The founder, Professor Elsie Effah Kaufmann, a biomedical engineer and academic, as well as the current quiz mistress for the National Science and Math Quiz (NSMQ), expressed her profound gratitude to Dext Technology Limited for the immense support provided to her foundation in the past year.

“When we launched Project Alpha, we had nothing to our name, and Dext Technology came in and donated a lot to us. I would like to thank Dext Technology. We have 650 schools that registered when we opened up for registration, and the support from Dext has been overwhelming.”

Professor Kaufmann added that her foundation is looking forward to expanding its operations to other regions after training teachers in six of Ghana’s sixteen regions and having an impact on over 15,000 learners.

“We have trained teachers in six regions in Ghana and have had an impact on over 15,000 learners in just one year. We have a target, and we have not yet achieved it, so Project Alpha continues. We are going to add a STEM code to track all that we have achieved so far and will continue until that is done.”

“She also called on the public to donate and “adopt a school to provide the necessary materials for us to go in and help your school.”

“The Science set has really helped our students. When I went around some time ago to inspect their exam papers, I realized that some of the students scored a hundred, and this toolkit has really helped a lot,” said one headmaster, praising the impact Dext Technology’s Science Set has had on his students.

A student who was part of a panel discussion said the Science Set “has made the study of Science really easy and really fun.”

Representatives from the National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA), the Ghana Education Service (GES), and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) pledged the support of their respective institutions to the Foundation.

Professor Kwasi Preko, a professor of geophysics at the Department of Physics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), also praised the practical-based teaching approach the Science Set provides to the successful teaching and learning of Science in a more simplified way in basic schools.

He further disclosed that KNUST has a nurturing program aimed at simplifying science education and making science learning fun, and is willing to partner with the Elsie Effah Kaufmann Foundation going forward.

Schools and proprietors interested in registering their schools on the platform can do so via stemghana.org.