Neotel has partnered with NIIT, a leading computer training and software company, to deliver an innovative education solution to South Africa through wolrd class training solutions.
Through the alliance, NIIT will use Neotel's fibre broadband infra- structure for education and training, mainly in the fields of ICT, banking, business process optimizatraining and e-literacy will occur through accredited and non-accredited as well as short-term skills upgrade programmes.
"Through this partnership both Neotel and NITT aim to build a larger pool of skilled manpower in South Africa, ready to take up challenging assignments across the world," said Sunil Joshi, chief executive of Neotel, when the announcement was made in March during the Brics Summit.
The partners are formalising the roll-out of education and knowledge centres that will be used to deliver custom-built training programmes to corporate executives and students.
Through NIIT's established curriculum, future students will be trained on a variety of environments on an equally wide variety of hardware platforms.
Courseware and training will be made accessible through Neotel's broadband network connectivity services, data centres and hosting and cloud based services.
The programmes are designed to build the computing skills of students to help them get hired and to help self-employed professionals carry out their work more effectively.
One of the key solutions Neotel and NIIT offer for schools is maths labs. Maths Lab increases mathematics awareness, skill building, positive attitude and "learning by doing".
They encourage students to learn concepts using concrete objects, verify maths facts and properties using models, measurement and activities, and establish individualised and peer learning centres.
Three provinces have already implemented Maths Lab in their daily teaching. The Free State department of education, under the initiative "Math for All", saw a significant opportunity in enhancing the learning effective- ness of mathematics in its schools by implementing NIIT's Math Lab solution.
The Eastern Cape department of education established its first Math Lab at Nxuba Primary School in Cradock, as a donation to the local community from NIIT. The master educators were trained on Math Lab for five days and, with daily support from NIIT, are using Math Lab successfully. Six KwaZulu-Natal schools have also implemented Math Lab as a pilot project.
"We are committed to delivering innovative solutions which will have a significant positive impact on the everyday lives of ordinary South Africans," said Joshi.
"This important initiative, we believe, will help to address the skills shortage and growing need especially in information technology."
Neotel and NIIT expect to formally launch their first education centre in the second half of 2013.