The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) teacher training project has to date trained almost 5 000 teachers in ICT skills.
The Train the Teacher project is managed with the assistance of the CoZa Cares Foundation, and over the last three years alone, around 750 educators and district officials have been trained in different ICT courses.
These include ICT leadership and change management, ICT support and operations, digital confidence, as well as online persona and device integration.
ISPA says primary objectives of the initiative is to boost educator ICT knowledge in the country's schools and ensure teachers share their newly-acquired skills to help improve the greater educational environment within their communities.
The Train the Teacher project began in 2001, and in 2004, ISPA introduced the SuperTeacher of the Year awards for educators who have best imparted their newly-acquired IT knowledge to their students and their local community after participating in the teacher training programme.
"Fully-capacitated teachers equipped with the latest IT knowledge are powerful agents of change to transform education. So much more can be done with the kind of appropriate technology tools that are being supplied through the intervention and support of ISPA and its members," says CoZa Cares Foundation CEO Fiona Wallace.
ISPA chairman Graham Beneke says many past ISPA SuperTeacher award recipients started their training without ever having touched a mouse.
"They then go onto great things, which include revolutionising teaching in their classrooms and sphere of influence, while winning further awards that are important for their own personal and professional development," he adds.
"My learners and I have become part of a huge virtual classroom that extends far beyond the confluence of my community," according to 2015 ISPA Champ Teacher, Mabore Lekalakala of Toronto Primary School in Polokwane.
ISPA SuperTeacher of the Year 2015, Tiny Molepo, is an educator at Mothibedi Combined School in Limpopo and since her award last year, she has gone on to give talks at digital education conferences.
"I was inspired to enter the ISPA SuperTeacher competition and it continues to inspire me," she says.
ISPA will announce the 2016 SuperTeacher of the Year awards at iWeek in Johannesburg in September.
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