In order to evaluate pupils' cybersecurity awareness at the senior high school (SHS) level nationwide, battle lines have been formed.
It comes after the second National Cybersecurity Challenge, an initiative of the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) designed to raise awareness of cyber safety among SHS students.
The National Cybersecurity Challenge, with the subject "Empowering the Next Generation," is quickly evolving to be one of the most significant challenges for challenging students at the SHS level.
The second iteration of the competition will begin this month with 50 SHSs in the 16 regions competing against one another using a set of criteria created by the Ghana Education Service (GES) and through regional, zonal, and championship matches.
As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) 2023, the competition's final will take place in October.
powerful cooperation
At the competition's Accra launch, the CSA's acting director in charge of child online protection, Afua Brown-Eyeson, said the organization was pleased to work with stakeholders on the challenge, which aimed to raise the necessary knowledge of child online safety.
She said the winner of each zone will participate in the grand final in October to be crowned the cyber security champions, adding that the country had been divided into four zones for the competition: the northern, middle, eastern, and southern.
The candidates will go through topics including social engineering, open-source intelligence, digital footprints, and the child online protection (COP) requirements of the Cybersecurity Act (Act 1038), 2020, before the competition.
"The challenge is a government initiative aimed at promoting cyber safety and awareness among senior high school students," she stated.
By 2022, there will be 17 million Internet users in Ghana, or 53% of the population, up from 2.31 million in 2012, according to Ms. Brown-Eyeson.
"Ghana was rated third in the world for social media usage as of January 2022, demonstrating the population's reliance on the Internet for a variety of aspects of life, including education, leisure, commerce, and entertainment."
She added that children use the Internet frequently, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks.
She said that numerous large cyber events in recent years have had a negative influence on schools and kids all around the world.