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Viafrica 2 - CLASSworks project - Support for Local Schools |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
Most
schools that become part of our Viafrica CLASSworks project are private
schools. This is a well-thought choice of Viafrica. The example on this page will illustrate this.
We
believe that sustainability of CLASSworks can be guaranteed.
What do you need to run an ICT-class? First and foremost it is
knowledge and for knowledge one needs: money. We have in the past
misjudged the situation at schools, or, were touched by a headmaster
or his enthusiasm which convinced us to work with a poorer school as
well. Time has told us that in the sense of sustainability this was
not a success at all. | 
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Computer classroom in Uru |
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We visited this specific school, let us call it
Nisaa, two months ago. All this time we have been in touch. We
trained the computer teachers for one week. That already was a
challenge since this man had both difficulties with the English of
the training, and with working with computers in general. We met the
headmaster at the seminar where he offered a very useful contribution
in the discussions we had. In the beginning we only noted that the
school called a lot because of computer problems. For example,
somebody had been playing with the hardware and caused a breakdown.
The next time there was a problem with folder permissions. Many other
calls followed and the service-costs grew. Viafrica kindly requested
the teacher to be more careful with the system and explained the
risks of, especially, trying to repair hardware on your own if you
are not a computer technician. We asked him to 'save up' some
problems and agreed to visit the schools after another two months.
That specific visit was really interesting. Evidence showed that the
computers were not used for quite some time: white ants had settled
and made nests in them... The situation at Nisaa is thus very
different from for example the more wealthy private school St. Thomas
where the computer teacher already has experience in teaching
computers.
We would like to
underline that even private (non-government) schools face a lot of
challenges in running the school and provision of basic materials.
The pictures of Uru, show that a huge investment has been made in a
very nice class room. However, a walk around the school premises
showed that the other class rooms still need a lot of maintenance. |
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