Orange Foundation officially launched the pilot phase for “digital schools” programme in 5 primary schools in the Central District. The programme aims to provide free educational content in digital format for primary school pupils. This content is stored on a memory card in a low-cost server (Raspberry PI) and can be accessed via a Wi-Fi connection and a browser. Each of the 5 participating schools received a digital kit comprising of 2 servers with pre- loaded content (Maths, Science, English, Literature, etc), 50 tablets, a video projector and an interactive whiteboard as well as headphones.
The 5 participating schools were; Mmanoko Primary School, Sedibe Primary School in Damuchujenaa, Ntlhantlhe Primary School, Dikgonnye Primary School, and Moshopha Primary Schoo.l The Orange Foundation compiled content from copyright free text books and made it available on memory cards with support from the Ministry of Basic Education, and Orange Foundation in Paris. The digital kit will serve as a supplement to what is already being taught in the classroom, and will provide content such as encyclopaedias, dictionaries, works of literature, video-based classes, revision sheets and maps. Orange Foundation has already provided content for upper primary levels, which has been used in the pilot phase of the programme.
Currently, the team is in the evaluation phase of the pilot project and once evaluations are done, the programme will be expanded to other schools around the country. Orange Foundations plans to extend this service to 30 more schools by the year 2020. -
