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Altech opens multimedia learning centre

Jacob Nthoiwa
By Jacob Nthoiwa, ITWeb journalist.
Johannesburg, 16 Nov 2010

Multimedia professionals are increasingly sought after and nearly every business or organisation that maintains a Web site requires a person with multimedia training to orchestrate the sound, text, images for their Web site.

However, in SA and other developing countries, especially in Africa, there is skills shortage when it comes to maths and science. In response to the challenge, JSE-listed Allied Technologies (Altech) has opened a high technology multimedia training centre for disadvantaged students in KwaMashu, KwaZulu-Natal, yesterday.

The centre is located at the Ntuzuma Teachers' Training Centre and is a three-way collaboration between the Department of Education, Altech UEC and Protec, a non-profit organisation that takes children from disadvantaged backgrounds and develops them in the areas of maths, science, English and life orientation.

In addition to the project is a mobile science lab, to be housed at the centre, known as a 'Trac Lab', which Altech has sponsored.

“This lab is sent to various schools during the day and is able to visually 'demonstrate' to students a science experiment utilising specific programs on its hi-tech computers, the organisation says.

According to Craig Venter, Altech's CEO, the centre will open up new horizons for underprivileged learners as they seek to acquire the skills required to compete in the South African economy. He says initiatives like this are essential.

“We are cultivating resources now in order to ensure our competitiveness in the future,” he adds.

Essential skills

Venter says students at the learning centre will be taught Microsoft Office and will have access to technical and scientific computer programs such as CAD and Plato.

“The centre is equipped with wireless Internet, which provides those who use it with the opportunity to link to the World Wide Web.”

He notes that many of the learners come from extreme poverty, and improving the quality of education provides them with a unique opportunity to improve their lives.

According to Altech, the multi-media centre is built in a central location, catering for 20 secondary schools that fall within a 15km radius.

“Many of these township schools remain grossly under-resourced and overcrowded and without basic facilities such as libraries, laboratories and computer facilities,” the organisation says.

As a result, the majority of the youth from these communities leave school ill-equipped and without the skills required in today's technological world, Venter points out. “Likewise, there are few homes in the townships that are conducive for studying; many having no electricity and often not even a table on which to do schoolwork.”

According to Altech, the vision for the centre is two-fold. “First, providing a well-equipped resource centre with adequate lighting, desks, chairs and educational supplies to ensure a valuable learning environment for students.”

The second vision, Altech notes, is to establish a hi-tech IT centre to provide students with the much-needed IT literacy skills required to compete in the working world.

In time, it is planned that the centre will open to the wider community in order to encourage those who have not been able to find work to learn more about computers and technology in the hope of up-skilling themselves and improving their employment opportunities, Altech points out.

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