The school has been turned into paperless classroom, a pilot project launched at seven shools in Tembisa, Duduza, Phomolong and Ivory Park, costing billions.
“No more will children get inferior education because they are poor. If you want to see a chalkboard, go to another province,” says Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
The new technology would be on par with model C schools, thus meaning pupils will now consider kasie schools for education instead of traveling to other areas for better education.
The seven schools were provided with high-speed broadband connectivity and devices and equipment including laptops, tablets, interactive electronic screens, e-content, including a set of standardised lesson plans for all subjects for grades 7 to 11.
According to Lesufi, six months ago teachers were trained to use the ICT systems, devices and content resources effectively.
For the second phase of the roll-out, the department is rolling out tablets and laptops to 375 township schools across the province. Lesufi said because of problems with contractors, 30 percent of the 375 schools would not be switched on Tuesday, but by the end of August.
For the second phase of the project, over 4 000 classrooms have been refurbished and 17 000 tablets for Grade 12 pupils and 1 800 3D LED interactive boards have been provided. Lesufi said the second phase cost R1.2 billion. The pilot project was launched at the start of the school year when seven schools were given laptops.
Instead of using textbooks, pupils have the curriculum material loaded on to the tablets and schools still have hard copies of textbooks in case of load shedding as most of them do not have generators.
The launch was also attended by minister of Education Angie Motshekga and Premier of Gauteng David Makhura, who both agreed that Gauteng was a trendsetter and other provinces should follow suit.
