Talent is everywhere in Ghana. Access is not. The EduCom Digital Hub College Prep Program turns underused school computer labs into community-owned digital learning centers, giving rural students the tools, skills, and support to succeed on the WASSCE and take their place in university.
The Challenge
Students in rural Ghana are just as capable as their peers in the city, but they are competing without the same tools.
Many of our students walk several kilometers to school, help support their families during farming season, and learn in English while speaking Bimoba or Konkomba at home. Most had never touched a computer before joining our program.
This gap is not about ability. It's about where a child happens to be born.
Our Approach
We don't drop off computers and leave. Too many past efforts have done that, and the equipment ended up locked away, broken, or unused. Instead, every Digital Hub is built with the community, run by local teachers, and designed for the realities of rural schools.
What's inside a Digital Hub
💻 30 refurbished laptops
Installed in a restored school ICT lab.
🌐 Hybrid internet
A SIM-card router with mobile hotspot backup.
🔋 Backup power
For schools with unreliable electricity, with solar systems being added.
📚 Google Classroom lessons
Aligned with the WASSCE curriculum.
👩🏫 Local teachers & ICT mentors
Trained local staff who lead every session.
How students learn
Four hours a week, students rotate through the four core WASSCE subjects: Mathematics, Integrated Science, English Language, and Social Studies. Each session includes a diagnostic quiz, teacher-led instruction, interactive digital exercises, and timed exam practice with feedback.
Along the way, students build real university-ready digital skills: creating a professional email, submitting assignments online, managing files in Google Drive, and taking part in online discussions.
Rooted in Our Culture
The program is grounded in Afrocentricity and Ubuntu, "I am because we are." Lessons use Ghanaian proverbs, local examples like farming calculations and market transactions, and storytelling traditions. Students learn together, help each other, and share responsibility for their lab.
Supporting girls in tech
Girls often start with less confidence in digital spaces. We pair female students with successful women mentors, host female-led peer support sessions, and highlight women's educational and career journeys so every girl can see herself succeeding.
Pilot Results: Bunkpurugu Senior High Technical School
We launched our first Digital Hub at Bunkpurugu Senior High Technical School in the North East Region in March 2025.
28 students registered. More than 100 showed up.
- Most students had no prior computer experience
- Teachers asked for ongoing training and stepped up to lead sessions
- When demand outgrew our 30 laptops, we doubled sessions from two to four per week so no one was turned away
Our biggest lesson: access, not ability, is the barrier. Give students the opportunity, and they run with it.
Meet Mary
Before the Digital Hub, Mary walked miles to school every day and had never used a computer. Today she logs into Google Classroom, works through digital lessons, and is preparing for the WASSCE with confidence.
Built by the Community
This hub belongs to Bunkpurugu. Chiefs, parents, teachers, and volunteers helped reopen and clean an abandoned lab, maintain the equipment, encourage attendance, and guide the program's direction. Traditional and religious leaders gave their blessing, helping the program earn the community's trust.
With gratitude to our Bunkpurugu teaching team:
- Mr. Kombat Dansuma — English
- Mr. Champong Iddrisu — Mathematics
- Mr. Agbenyeszi Junior Julien — Integrated Science
- Mr. Adam Yusif — Social Studies
- Mr. Laarjook Seidu Issaka and Mr. Moamah Moses — ICT
- Mr. Baanii Suuk Mathew — Research Coordinator
The Vision Behind the Program
The EduCom Digital Hub College Prep Program was designed and led by Dr. Lawrence Owusu Fianko, DSW, LCSW, as his Doctor of Social Work Capstone Project at the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work (2025).
Dr. Fianko grew up in Accra, where access to computers at school helped shape the course of his life. When he returned to Ghana to launch the first Digital Hub and saw more than 100 students arrive for just 30 laptops, the mission became clear: this work is about dignity and justice, not just technology. A Ghanaian American social worker, father, and the first in his family to earn a doctorate, he is committed to using his access "to widen the gate, not guard it."
The program was developed through a participatory design process with students, teachers, parents, and traditional leaders, and it advances the social work Grand Challenge to Achieve Equal Opportunity and Justice.
📄 Read the full Capstone: Bridging the Educational and Digital Divide in Rural Ghana: The EduCom Digital Hub College Prep Program
View the Capstone (link coming soon)
With thanks to his Capstone committee: Melissa Singh, Ed.D., LCSW, MS-HSA; Harry Hunter, PhD, DSW, MBA, LMSW; and Veronica Safoa Owusu.
What's Next
- Expanding Digital Hubs to more rural schools in the Bunkpurugu district, in partnership with the Ghana Education Service
- Training teachers through a train-the-trainer model so every school can sustain its own hub
- Phase Two: the Mobile Digital Bus, bringing the hub directly to schools without a computer lab
Help Us Open the Next Hub
One Digital Hub costs about
$16,050
for a full academic year, covering laptops, internet, power backup, training, teacher stipends, and maintenance.
Every gift helps:
- Donate to fund laptops, data, or teacher stipends
- Partner with us as a company, foundation, or telecom provider
- Volunteer your skills as a mentor or advocate
- Share Mary's story with your network
When innovation is grounded in empathy, equity, and culture, it can change what's possible for a whole community.