Kingsmead College, one of Johannesburg`s best-known private schools, has joined forces with local computer and networking company, Duxbury Networking, to bring computer literacy training to the staff of its collaboration schools in Soweto.
These are the Entandweni, Lakeview, Sibowgile, Dumezweni, Ekuthuleni, Jabavu and Isipho Primary Schools.
The training programme involves a seven-week orientation course, held at the Duxbury Academy in Johannesburg, for the clerical, administration, secretarial and reception staff at these schools.
It focuses on the use of computers and popular software programs, including MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint and others, in the day-to-day execution of common tasks.
According to Gillian Wilkinson, director of Community Services at Kingsmead College, the training programme is an extension of the college`s Community Collaboration project designed to help staff optimise their teaching skills in their own schools.
"Kingsmead has a very strong and different attitude towards training. In Duxbury Academy we found an organisation that was prepared to write, develop and tailor training courses to suit our requirements. They did not come to us with a packaged training offering to impose on us," she says.
Graham Duxbury, MD of Duxbury Networking, says his company was looking for an opportunity to put the industry leading skills and training expertise of its academy to good use within the community.
"We have the ability to design and deliver training courses and execute a skills transfer programme, but until we discovered the need at Kingsmead College, we lacked direction," he says.
Pat Brink, Headmistress at Kingsmead, is delighted with the results of the recently completed first training course. "We have planted a seed within the community in Soweto and we will now do our best to encourage it to grow.
"Training the administrative staff at our collaboration schools will have a `ripple effect` in the community as these staff members will be more powerfully equipped to offer a better service to the student body. From a training perspective, it is a different direction, but one in which we have enormous confidence," she says.
"Our next initiative with the Duxbury Academy will involve training specifically designed for the senior educators - principals and deputy principals - to bring them up to speed on the latest technologies and innovations in the high technology arena," adds Brink.
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