Setting a good example
With 600 schools running with computer labs by the end of the year, the rampant success of the Western Cape Education Department`s Khanya initiative could provide a valuable lesson plan for similar programmes trying to ramp up social development in other provinces.
03 January 2006
A cursory inspection of Bridgeville Primary might suggest that it is no different from any other junior school in the Cape Flats. It`s set in a painfully modest building in a poor area, overwhelmed by unemployment, violent crime and social malaise.
A year ago, 90 percent of the school`s 560 learners (and most of the 21 staff) had never laid fingertips on a mouse. Now, the school has seen its marks in numeracy and literacy (as ranked by the Education Department) jump more than a 100 percent, thanks to the newly installed computer lab coupled with a tailor-made software intervention.
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