Working with the premise that information and communications technology (ICT) has the capacity to make or unmake so far as women's empowerment is concerned, this article looks at the ICT situation among female distance learners in both endowed and under-served parts of Ghana, to check the user differentials among the two contrasting groups through a survey that covered 174 respondents. From the results one could not strongly say that there were vast ICT knowledge and usage gaps among the two groups considering the extent of the developmental gap that the regional differences presents. Factors like time or convenience, space, and income have to be considered in using ICT for education and development among women. Exposing the women to multiple usages of ICT is also critical. Another core observation from this study is that women who are generally categorized as not being technology friendly are overcoming at least that. This applies not only to women in relatively well-endowed areas but also to those in under-served areas. This is a good starting point for undertaking gender-specific projects that will promote e-learning, e-government, e-medicine, e-commerce and all other applications among women in both urban and rural communities.

The outbreak of Covid-19 led to the migration of 1729 adults, who had applied to the University of Ghana to go through an access course for writing the Mature Entrance Examination for admission into undergraduate programmes. A survey was conducted to explore the experiences of the students. The study revealed that over 90% of the respondents were proficient in the use of ICTs. They used the Sakai learning management platform, zoom, and emails for their teaching and learning engagements. Four in five (84%) respondents preferred 50% online tuition and 50% face-to-face tuition. They, however, had issues with poor internet connectivity, the high cost of data for the internet, and limited contact time. Basic support systems such as the provision of high-speed but affordable internet services and increased online interactions will be of help to such students.

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Abstract-There is a relationship between ICTs and empowerment of rural women. ICTs are applicable to all sectors of development for women, most especially education, livelihoods, healthcare and government which are directly linked to poverty alleviation. Meanwhile there are arguments that tight fiscal constraints facing Ghana may frustrate the widespread use of ICT by households. This is especially troublesome in the case of poor rural female households because without some type of government assistance, the ICT revolution may escape them altogether. Most scholars and policy leaders recognize that ICT is one of the contributing factors to social and economic disparities across different social and economic groups, for example, disparities between developed and developing countries, between rural and urban dwellers, and between men and women. The critical information needed for making appropriate and relevant ICT policies to improve rural conditions for women is to identify the characteristics of rural female households, and how these characteristics influence the choice of ICT technology.The study uses results from a survey of 1000 households from the ten regions in Ghana to assess rural female household heads' willingness to pay for alternative ICT use in the delivery of information to them. A pooled cross section technique was used to estimate an aggregate technology choice function for the entire country. Among the principal factors in the empirical model were households' incomes, levels of education, sizes of households, availability of cooperatives or community organizations, age, and marital status. Standard regression techniques that correct for possible heteroscedastic errors due to the differences in regional and households' attributes were used to estimate the model.The results of the study leads to a need to set rural empowerment policies and programs within the broader poverty reduction policies of the government and also within the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The results enforce that the attainment of the MDGs would boost ICT use in delivering information to rural households since income was found to be consistently statistically significant in explaining rural women's willingness to pay for information. Considering the context of the relationship between incomes and ICT use to empower rural women the key issue is for policy and program planners to better understand the dynamics in the enterprises of rural women and to recognize shifts in economic activity that may be counter to the historical pattern of economic activity which is agriculture oriented and design programs that will respond adequately to such shifts. By so doing rural women will be in a good position to utilize the full potential of ICT which will in turn improve their productivity/income and facilitate their empowerment.