As part of its on-going Digital Schools Project aimed towards bridging the digital divide and leveraging on technology to improve access to education, Orange Foundation handed over digital kits to Dikgonnye Primary School in Kgatleng Region recently.
According to Orange Botswana’s Legal and Corporate Affairs Director, Lepata Mafa-Nthomola, the Orange Foundation’s on going Digital Schools Project is just another way that the organization continues to support the Government of Botswana’s vision of integrating ICTs into the education sector and ultimately enhancing the delivery of education as well as the teaching and learning experience.
“What we have done is to essentially avail educational material in an electronic format, making it easy to re-distribute and re-use learning materials, thereby increasing education access to a larger number of learners cost effectively,” said Mafa-Nthomola.
The digital kit donated to Dikgonnye Primary School comprised of:
- fifty (50) tablets
- fifty (50) tablet cases
- fifty (50) headphones
- Two (2)Raspberry Pi servers pre-loaded with content which can be accessed via a Wi-Fi connection
- eleven (11) multi-socket adaptors
- two (2) dust resistant cases with padlocks
- one (1) projector
- one (1) screen
In addition to the Digital Kit, the Orange Foundation engaged a digital specialist, Ms Melissa Tafila of Conexus who converted primary school learning materials into electronic format and stored it in a mini server to be accessed by leaners and teachers through the tablets.
“Through our partnership with Conexus we have animated all the learning materials making the learning process fun, interactive and attractive for the learners,” said Mafa-Nthomola.
The teaching materials incorporate visual and audio to stimulate the young minds and improve learners’ understanding. The material is delivered through interactive text, images, videos, games and animations to make learning more exciting, engaging and fun, keeping students interested, active and engaged at all times and it is expected that when children learn this way, it becomes easy for them to retain more knowledge from their learning.
Dikgonnye Primary School is the second of 5 schools to benefit in the Pilot Phase of this project. Other schools lined up to benefit from this project include Ntlhantlhe Primary School, Mmanoko Primary School and Moshopha Primary School. A total of 30 schools will eventually be added in to the programme with an average 500 students per school expected to have benefited at the end of the roll out of the program.
