The Western Cape Education Department has marked the delivery of computer labs to at least 320 schools in the province.
Premier Ebrahim Rasool and rugby personality Francois Pienaar celebrated the achievements at a seminar in Cape Town yesterday.
The laboratories were installed through the Khanya Technology in Education Project, an initiative the department launched in April 2001 to promote the use of technology in schools. It has set itself the target to empower every educator by 2012 to use appropriate technology to deliver the curriculum to every learner in the province.
The department says its project has trained 322 schools in the effective use of technology; with 10 000 educators empowered to use technology for curriculum delivery, 10 000 computers in use in Khanya schools, and about half a million learners benefiting from the project so far.
Highlighting the success of the project, the department notes that last month, one Khanya school, the Atlantis Secondary School in the Western Cape, was placed first in the technology-enhanced learning and teaching category at the Most Improved Schools Awards 2004, held at the Presidential Guest House in Pretoria.
The Khanya project was also the only African finalist in the education category of the international IT awards programme known as the Stockholm Challenge for 2003/04, and it won the Standard Bank Public Sector Innovation Award in the innovative service delivery institutions category.
Education MEC Cameron Dugmore said he was proud of the project`s achievements. "With education through technology comes greater access to information, the development of IT skills, more effective administration of schools, a higher level of accountability and increased confidence for entire communities."
Dugmore noted that MultiChoice had committed itself to equip disadvantaged schools in the province with TV sets, VCRs and satellite dishes to give learners access to educational programmes.
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