IT Skills Boost For Five Provinces

28 March 2008

The Internet Service Providers’ Association of SA’s (ISPA) series of beginners and intermediate computer literacy training courses kicked off this week (24 March) in the Free State, Limpopo, North West, KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga and ran until 28 March 2008.

“This latest round of skills training will boost the practical knowledge of 121 educators from 13 schools and represents one of ISPA’s biggest investments in South Africa’s future to date,” said Bernie Amler, chairperson of ISPA’s Teacher Training Working Group.

One of the main criteria of ISPA’s nationwide teacher training programme is that schools need to be in dire need of IT skills training to enable them to benefit from the initiative. The educators will be trained on OpenOffice2 by SETA (Sector Education & Training Authority) accredited assessors from Avuxeni Computer Academy.

According to Riaan van Brakel, Director of Avuxeni Computer Academy, “One of the greatest achievements of this programme is the 100% attendance rate recorded at the training sessions over the years. The enthusiasm and general appreciation expressed by both learners and educators continually reinforces our commitment to them.”

The ongoing sponsorship from UniForum SA, the CO.ZA Registry, has had a profound impact on the schools previously trained as well as the wider community since the programme’s inception in December 2001. The training in March will increase the number of educators trained to 1 256 and the number of computers donated by UniForum to 1 685 over the past few years. The computer laboratories at which training is conducted were deployed by NetDay.

“A major disadvantage faced by our school is the lack of teachers knowledgeable enough to help our learners keep abreast of new developments in technology. We are grateful to ISPA’s teacher training programme for addressing this need,” said D.H. Makappa, Principal of Lerato Uthando Secondary School in the Free State.

Every annual iWeek conference features the “Super Teacher of the Year” awards which recognise teachers that have participated in ISPA’s teacher training project and successfully imparted their newly-acquired knowledge to their learners and local communities. Ten outstanding teachers will have the opportunity to participate in the awards and one phenomenal teacher will be selected from this group as the winner.

ISPA conveys its special thanks to the following companies for their charitable contributions towards training over the years: Absa Bank, eNetworks, Snowball Effect, X-DSL Broadband, Imaginet, MTN Network Solutions, Cybersmart, Internet Solutions, Posix, SAI Futurenet and Intoweb Training for sponsoring software.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Schools that were trained from 24-28 March 2008 include the following:

Free State

Lerato Uthando Secondary School (Host School) – 10 educators

Bolato Secondary School – 10 educators

Limpopo

Torronto Primary School (Host School) – 10 educators

Mountain View Secondary School – 10 educators

Setlo Secondary School(Host School) – 10 educators

Ntji – Motapo Primary School – 10 educators

Kwa-Zulu Natal

Kwasoni Primary School (Host School) – 10 educators

Robert Hlungwane Secondary School – 10 educators

Mpumalanga

Mphephethe Primary School (Host School) – 7 educators

Hedrina Primary School – 7 educators

Kwazamokuhle Secondary School – 7 educators