From left to right: Marita Turpin from UP, Dept of Informatics; Joseph Jere from UKZN, Department of IS&T; Dawit Asmelash from UP, Dept of Informatics; Kirstin Krauss from UP, Dept of Informatics; Mrs Khumalo, Headmistress of Lobethal Independent School in Tugela Ferry
The Department of Informatics from the University of Pretoria has engaged in a special outreach initiative to a community in Tugela Ferry in rural KwaZulu-Natal. This forms part of their corporate social investment programme. Tugela Ferry, the administrative and business centre of the Msinga District in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is a small rural village on the Tugela River roughly midway between the Indian Ocean and the Drakensberg. Tugela Ferry has been identified as second on the list of most economically disadvantaged communities in South Africa and is therefore in dire need of various forms of development and support.
The Department of Informatics will present a certificate course in Basic Computer Literacy to the teachers of Lobethal Independent School in Tugela Ferry. This is a five day course aimed at introducing school teachers in rural communities to computing and information literacy.
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) will support the Tugela Ferry Project financially. These funds will be used towards capacity building in ICTs at Lobethal Independent School in Tugela Ferry. This initiative forms part of UNESCO’s policy framework of contributing towards strengthening ICT in support of knowledge creation, acquisition and sharing in the field of education.
"According to UNESCO’s policy, both professional development programmes for teachers currently in the classroom and programmes for preparing future teachers should provide technology-rich experiences throughout all aspects of the training. Standards and resources within UNESCO’s project “ICT Competency Standards for Teachers (ICT-CST)” provide guidelines for all teachers, specifically for planning teacher education programmes and training offerings that will prepare them to play an essential role in producing technology-capable students." Said Jaco du Toit, Communication and Information Advisor from UNESCO.
Continuing Education at University of Pretoria (CE at UP) will certify the training course and also be responsible for facilitating logistic arrangements. Training will take place from 29 June to 12 July 2009 on site at Lobethal School in Tugela Ferry.
According to Deon Herbst, CEO of CE at UP, “Continuous education is the key to enhancing productivity and empowering communities, thereby addressing the ongoing skills shortages; we are proud of the Department of Informatics and UNESCO for providing this vital skills development initiative.”
Kirstin Krauss, from the Department of Informatics at the University of Pretoria, pointed out “The Department of Informatics believes in a holistic approach to ICTs in developing context and we value ethics highly in any community engagement initiative. We, therefore, place a strong emphasis on creating relationships, empowering community workers, facilitating social development, addressing poverty and creating ownership, motivation, hope and liberty in people. We will hopefully be able to identify and empower some teachers, through an additional train-the-trainer initiative, to also facilitate ongoing ICT training in the region.”
“Any investment and project initiated at Tugela Ferry is done in close collaboration with community participants. Impacting and creating a culture for sustainability and empowerment are important considerations in this outreach initiative. We focus on training the teachers on using the popular Microsoft Office suite because it is the office automation application of choice in most organisations worldwide.” He added.
The course is, therefore, relevant in the work place. This is an instructor led course that is delivered using a hands-on practical approach and is supplemented by Virtual Expert (Virtual Expert is an interactive computer-based training programme for computer literacy in isiZulu and
English and was donated by Intoweb Training specifically for the Tugela Ferry project). Virtual expert enables re-use of training material for the school and the community’s greater benefit.
In the course, every teacher uses a computer individually and the key strategy is to individualise the training for each participant, hence motivating them to focus on how computing can have a positive and significant impact on the way they carry out their particular work, teaching and administrative tasks. The course can easily be tailored for other community members such as nurses and school leavers.
The course covers the following basic modules: Basic Concepts of Computing, Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Windows XP.
At the end of the course, participants will be given an examination, which will test the adeptness of the complete course content. A certificate from the University of Pretoria is awarded to each participant on successful completion of the course.
According to Kirstin Krauss, “Our aim is to primarily empower teachers so that more people may be empowered and the community as a whole may by reached in the long run.”
If you would like to contribute to this project to make a difference out there please contact Kirstin Krauss at kirstin.krauss@up.ac.za or look for further information at www.tugelaferry.co.za
For more information on Continuing Education at the University of Pretoria, please contact:
Lisa Chunder
CEatUP
Tel: 012-420-5015
Email: lisac.ce@up.ac.za
Or
Estelle Viviers
Marketing Manager
CEatUP
Tel: 012-420-5004/7
Cell: 083 704 4426
Email: estelle.ce@up.ac.za