Education
Nearly 100 teachers, 1,800 students test positive for coronavirus in South Africa
At least 98 teachers and 1,800 learners in South Africa’s Covid-19 epicentre province, the Western Cape, have tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus, forcing 20 schools to close. The schools will be disinfected this week. The southern African nation allowed schools to reopen from June 1. Education MEC Debbie Schafer, however, said the cases had not spiked due to the reopening of schools. “Of this number, 1,537 cases were reported before the schools were reopened,” Ms Schafer said. The provincial Education Department had spent R280 million (US$16.3 million) on hygiene supplies. Pupils and teachers were given two masks each, while schools were equipped with digital thermometers, hand sanitiser, liquid soap, and cleaning supplies. Opposition leader Mmusi Maimane, a former Democratic All...
Senegal postpones school restart after teachers test positive for coronavirus
Senegal has postponed the restart of schools until further notice after several teachers tested positive for the new coronavirus, the education ministry said late on Monday. Schools were scheduled to gradually resume on Tuesday, after weeks of shutdown due to the pandemic. Senegal has recorded 3,739 positive COVID-19 cases since the start of the outbreak, with 43 deaths. An education ministry statement said teachers tested positive for coronavirus in Ziguinchor, in the Casamance area, south of the country. It said Senegal’s President Macky Sall decided to “postpone the restart of classes until a later date, in order to avoid any risk of the virus spreading in schools.” The government began bussing teachers from the capital Dakar to schools in the other regions last week in preparation for ...
Vodacom Partners with WITS University to Ensure Continued Online Learning
To help students stay on track to successfully complete the 2020 academic year despite not being on campus, Vodacom has partnered with the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) in Johannesburg to keep students connected to higher learning activities. The network provider says that it has committed to providing each student with a 30GB data bundle to remain connected and continue their education while they are away from campus. “We can all agree that success begins with education. For many students, remote learning is a challenge as they do not have the means to access online learning materials,” says William Mzimba, Chief Officer for Vodacom Business. “As remote learning becomes a necessity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vodacom Business is proud to partner with WITS to support education a...
Unisa Confirms Postponement of Online Exams Due to Overworked Servers
Sourced from EWN. The University of South Africa (Unisa) has been forced to postpone several exams after technical issues interrupted last week’s set of online exams. Affected modules whose exams have been postponed include those studied by criminology students, as well as those in development studies. Sipho Xukwe, a third-year criminology student told City Press on Friday that he wasn’t able to submit his exam answers during online writing sessions this week because the system was “clogged due to the high volume of exam scripts and question papers.” /* custom css */ .tdi_3_6d7.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_6d7.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Xukwe continues says that while trying to answer questions, “A message popped up saying [the system] cannot hold the number of stud...
NHRC: Most govt officials are ignorant of human rights
The Ebonyi state coordinator of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Mr. Christopher Onyekachi, says most government officials are ignorant of human rights. Onyekachi who spoke with newsmen on Monday, in Abakaliki, called on government to make provision for human rights education our various academic institutions. “Most of the government officials are ignorant of human rights. There is need to help us through the program which UNICEF is ready to partner too. “Human rights education should be inserted in the curriculum of the schools so that children from the primary, secondary and Tertiary school levels will be ready to know what their rights are because these are the major people that will form members of the society. “So, when they learn their rights as the basic thing they will ...
Egyptian Fintech Startup Offers Online Payment Platform for Students
Sourced from Innovation Village. Local fintech startups Klickit (previously known in the market as Q-Less) and Paymob are officially enabling digital payments for educational entities affiliated with global advisory and educational management firm GEMS Education. This agreement will allow parents of students in GEMS schools across Egypt to make tuition payments online for over 6,000 students. The model is expected to be rolled out to more countries in the future. The GEMS network includes more than 250 schools in 13 countries, of which four are in Egypt, namely The British School Al-Rehab, Madinaty Language School, Madinaty Integrated Language Schools (MILS) and The British International School Madinaty. “Our partnership with Klickit is driving our digital transformation goals forward. Thr...
Check Point Software Partners Strathmore University to Promote Digital Skills in Kenya
Sourced from Business News Daily Cybersecurity solutions company, Check Point Software has announced that its education initiative has partnered with Strathmore University in Kenya to provide a comprehensive cybersecurity curriculum to students, bridging the digital skills gap and also creating a safer local cyber landscape. According to research, the number of unfilled cybersecurity roles now stands at 4.07 million professionals globally. What causes alarm for those within the security market across Africa is that the ICT courses across a range of disciplines are still underdeveloped, as well as the skills required to operate, support and understand the complexities of next-generation technologies and threats. Introducing the Check Point SecureAcademy To keep up with the current thr...
Lagos partners Microsoft to train 18, 000 teachers – commissioner
Mrs Folashade Adefisayo, Commissioner for Education, Lagos State, said the state government had partnered Microsoft to train 18, 000 teachers to enhance computer literacy towards achieving a world best teaching and learning practices. Adefisayo said this while discussing plans of the Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration for education on an online show, Covinspiration, moderated by Special Representative to the United Nations, and British Council Global Change-maker, Mr Dayo Israel. Newsmen report that the event was to keep the public abreast of the activities of administration in the last one year. The commissioner said: “This COVID-19 lockdown period avails us the opportunity to improve our teachers. For instance, we partnered with Microsoft and they are teaching 18,000 of our teachers ...
Ericsson Launches a Digital Learning Programme for Students
In response to how the global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education and learning around the world, Ericsson has joined the UNESCO-led Global Education Coalition by launching Ericsson Educate – a digital programme delivering online learning content focused on improving digital skills for students in secondary schools and universities. Now more than ever, being digitally connected is vital to maintaining a sense of normalcy during the current circumstances. Education is one critical sector particularly affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic, with around 1.2 billion students and youth around the world unable to attend traditional education institutions. This has placed a huge demand for comprehensive online education programs on governments and education institutions alike. The Ericsson...
Why Getting Students Online Poses a Major Challenge
The COVID-19 lockdown has forced many schools, colleges and educational institutions to rapidly switch to online learning. Although there are many advanced online learning platforms available, the one critical factor that still remains is reliable connectivity to online learning platforms. The reality is that only a small percentage of homes in South Africa are covered by uncapped fibre connectivity. This is where mobile data connectivity is the only option. There has been ongoing lobbying of mobile networks led by various educational organisations such as the National Association of Social Change Entities in Education as well as the DG Murray Trust. The current reality, however, is that learning institutions are forced to provide data connectivity to learners. Last week, the U...
Ayo Adebanjo: President Buhari not sincere about keeping Nigeria together
President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, John Nwodo, elder statesman and Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, and former Governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, have described Nigeria’s constitution as illegal. They spoke in a video conference organized by Governance Index titled: “Coronavirus Pandemic: Is it time to reevaluate the political structure of the country?” Opening the session, Nwodo said the constitution was given to Nigerians by a military government which was not elected, adding that in 1999, politicians went into the election without knowing the parameter that will guide the democratic process. He said the military wrote the constitution and abandoned regionalism. At the video conference which was the fifth edition of the weekly conference series: Covid-19: Turning a crisi...
South African EduTech Supports Online Learning for Students in Rural Communities
Sourced from CodeXtra Trends Syafunda, an educational platform that provides access to digital content through mobile technology, has received investment funding from SME-enabler Edge Growth which will allow them to scale their platform to meet the surging need for online learning in South Africa. Syafunda, which means “we are learning” in Zulu, was the inspiration of entrepreneur Zakheni Ngubo. Together with his Durban-based Syafunda team, Zakheni is capitalising on South Africa’s high mobile penetration rate to make education more easily accessible. Syafunda partners with local content developers and publishers, setting up digital libraries in places like townships and rural schools where connectivity is limited or non-existent. The digital libraries have five terabytes of pre-loaded con...
