The Thabo Mbeki Foundation has donated laptops and tablets to more than 20 schools in Mpumalanga.
The Foundation has partnered with ProFuturo, an international company, to help improve the education of learners in various schools.
The Foundation wants to ensure that South Africans are also part of the fourth industrial revolution. Twenty-five rural schools in Mpumalanga have benefitted from the Thabo Mbeki Foundation’s donation.
Teachers and parents, including the Mpumalanga Department of Education, have welcomed the initiative. They say the project will go a long way in improving the skills of the learners.
Burglary a challenge
Burglary is one of the serious challenges facing many schools across the country. During the hard lockdown, in Mpumalanga alone, more than 100 schools were burgled.
The Department of Education says issues of safety at school are high on their agenda. The provincial maths and science director, Elijah Nkosi, says they instructed schools to build strong rooms to secure these valuable items.
“Indeed the issue of security in our schools for electronic is one of the challenges but in this particular project, fortunately, is just one or two boxes are delivered to school, carrying the tables and other things. What we did before they were delivered, we had a meeting with the principals and agreed that a school must have a strong room if a school does not have one at least they must just build one using some steel just to be innovative so that there is good storage.”
Fourth industrial revolution
Thabo Mbeki Foundation programme manager, Lukhanyo Nyerr, says they opted to implement this project in rural schools and also introduce a school gardening project to fight poverty.
Nyerr says they want to ensure that South Africa is also part of the fourth industrial revolution.
“We worked with ProFuturo to identify 25 schools in Mpumalanga and 25 in the Eastern Cape. We have four coaches in Mpumalanga who are working with these schools on weekly basis to ensure that we are rolling up this programme. The reason we are in Mpumalanga today is to ensure that the equipment is in the hands of the schools and what we are planning is that we are working with 24 000 learners in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga and our overall plan is to reach major learners and give them access to both the tablets and laptops,” Nyerr adds.
The Thabo Mbeki Foundation’s Digital Education Program and Kilimo Agricultural Program aims to equip young people with critical skills that will allow them to become self-reliant. “We are feeding minds and fighting poverty” #QualityDigitalEducation #Kilimo #ThaboMbekiFoundation pic.twitter.com/GmVqzaAHyP
— Thabo Mbeki Foundation (@TMFoundation_) April 21, 2021
One of the schools to benefit from this initiative is German Chiloane High School in Acornhoek, north of Busbhuckridge.
