President Thabo Mbeki formally launched the Nepad e-Schools Demo Project in SA yesterday, with the opening of a computer lab and audio-visual centre at Maripe Secondary School, in Mpumalanga.
Maripe is one of six schools in SA in which computer labs and audio-visual centres will be installed as part of the demo project, which includes 18 African countries. The initiative was launched in March 2003 and aims to see the digitisation of all of the estimated 600 000 schools in Africa by 2013.
The demo project, says executive deputy chairman of the Nepad e-Africa Commission Dr Henry Chasia, will allow Nepad to obtain the information it will need to successfully provide all of Africa's schools with computer labs.
"The schools chosen for the demo project," he says, "have been selected to meet the conditions we expect to meet in these areas, and have been chosen so that we have the information we need as we roll out."
The demo project labs and audio-visual centres are being installed by five consortia, at their own cost, headed by HP, Cisco, Microsoft, AMD and Oracle. Maripe is one of two schools in Mpumalanga being outfitted by the HP consortium, which is also involved with a school in Limpopo, as well as schools in Uganda and Egypt, where centres have already been launched.
The Cisco consortium will outfit two schools in KwaZulu-Natal, and a further two schools in the Free State will be furnished by the Oracle consortium. All five consortia will establish labs in multiple countries.
Each demo site will be supported by the consortia concerned for a 12-month period, after which the relevant local community and government will be responsible for support and maintenance.
Sustainability, support
The Maripe centre is fitted with servers, PCs, copiers, printers and scanners, a Motorola Canopy wireless broadband connection, as well as a television with access to DTSV's Learning Channel.
The computers have been equipped with a Linux operating system, e-mail client, browser and office productivity suite, and educational software that assists in the learning process, as well as the administration and maintenance of the school.
Teachers and a small group of students have been provided with PC literacy training as part of the roll-out. Each consortia is responsible for selecting its own preferred mix of hardware, software, connectivity, training and support.
Echoing the themes of community and sustainability, Mbeki, at the formal opening ceremony, stated: "In the end, the project is about changing the country and the continent for the better."
He also issued a challenge to learners to use the centre to improve themselves, their community, country and continent.
(Samantha Perry was in Bushbuckridge courtesy of HP South Africa.)
Related stories:
Tech boost for Egyptian schools
Rwanda e-schools advance
Ugandan schools get PCs
SA links to Nepad e-Schools
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