Schools and communities around Mooi Nooi in North West will be major beneficiaries of an ICT in education programme recently launched by the Lonmin Community Development Trust and Microsoft South Africa (MSA).
MSA has already, through its Partners in Learning programme, ‘funded and provided the national teacher professional development model for the initial training of teachers”. As part of the new deal, Lonmin will take over and fund more than 500 teachers in 29 schools in Mooi Nooi.
Lonmin Community Development Trust president Kgomotso Tshaka said the signing of the memorandum ‘was a seal on our partnership and commitment to empowering our learners together to realise their true potential” .
Tshaka said technology is ‘transformative” as it leads and enables change by ‘connecting people to information and opportunities that empower them to dream and act on a bigger scale than before”.
‘By raising ICT competency in rural communities, Microsoft, its partners, Lonmin and government are determined to reduce the digital divide and enable learners and their communities to realise their full potential,” said Ashley de Klerk, public sector director at MSA.
De Klerk said so far MSA had, through the Partners in Learning model, trained officials from the national department of education in most of the nine provinces, including more than 8 600 master teachers.