Mbeki backing for first e-School
HP managed to field the most impressive guest list when President Thabo Mbeki opened the first of six proposed e-Schools, bristling with computer equipment. The kit includes computers connected to the internet using wireless technology, as well as printers, faxes, scanners and copiers.
The lab at Maripe secondary school, at Bushbuckridge in Limpopo, is part of the e-Schools project run by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
The government-backed project is proving painfully slow. It is still in its demonstration stage, despite being launched in June 2003.
The first e-School opened in Uganda in June 2005, yet little progress has been made towards the ultimate goal of equipping 600000 African schools by 2015.
The project aims to use information and communications technology (ICT) to improve education and help youngsters develop hi-tech skills in a continent where only one in every 130 people has a computer.
HP’s consortium includes Eskom, Mindset, MultiChoice, Canonical, Transtel, Sanani, Edupac, Edutouch, Mergent Technologies and Intel. It will sponsor 21 e Schools in seven countries.
“HP aims to apply the potential of technology in education,” said its local CEO, Thoko Mokgosi-Mwantembe. “HP’s commitment goes beyond the donation of equipment. Through our workshops, teachers and the community will be able to learn the skills that are needed to participate as equals in the global knowledge economy,” he said.
Microsoft also pumped more resources into education by opening a Microsoft School Technology Innovation Centre. The lab, in Troyeville, Johannesburg, was opened by Education Minister Naledi Pandor.
SA is the fifth country where Microsoft has set up one of these centres to demonstrate the latest technologies and processes for schools, and to give schools the chance to test new technologies before buying them.
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