St Louis senior high school (SHS) in Kumasi, has been crowned winner of the maiden edition of the National Cyber Champions Competition (NCCC).
The all-female second cycle institution accrued 99.5 points to stay on top at the end of the keenly contested quiz involving 14 SHSs from across the country.
Aggrey Memorial SHS and Kpando SHS scored 98.16 and 97 points to place second and third positions, respectively.
The NCCC, an initiative of CyberGhana, is a hands-on and project-based science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and cyber programme that motivates high school students to learn advanced concepts in a competitive environment.
The programme coordinator of CyberGhana, Bright Edujih Kuleke, said the competition intends to develop a cyber security workforce among the youth in Ghana and Africa. It is part of CyberGhana’s commitment to promote cyber security engineering education and helping to build Ghana’s pool of diverse talents from the high school level.
Kuleke said organisations, today, face severe challenges recruiting talents needed to protect emerging technology and critical systems from cyber security threats. There are shortages across the board, however, the greatest need is for professionals with extensive technical training who can take on high-value roles including secure system design, tool development and penetration testing.
Studies show that nearly four million jobs are not filled because of a shortage of cyber security talents. Currently, several cyber security employees are found to need more fundamental knowledge, practical experience and critical technical skills, he said.
Kuleke noted that the current high school system does not have college-related programmes for students with high intelligence quotients to challenge them to learn advanced skills whiles in school. This is one of reasons for introducing the NCCC programme. It aims at developing cyber talents among high school students who are ready to learn advanced cyber skills.
The programme puts teams of high school students in the position of newly hired cyber-security professionals performing operational tasks in a small company. The teams are assigned a set of virtual tools that represent a natural business environment. They are tasked with carrying out real consulting projects.
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