Education & I.T. Training
AIT Information Technology
Information Technology (I.T.) is a very important element of our “Cradle to Career “ Education Plan.
Our vision is to up skill Lesotho teachers and pupils in I.T in order to empower a young generation to improve their own life opportunities.
We have formed a strong partnership with a registered charity, Camara Education, which was founded in Dublin in 2007 and now works extensively delivering I.T. programmes in Africa.
AIT has delivered almost 500 hundred computers to 15 Lesotho schools while Camara is providing I.T. Training to the teachers in our absence. Over the last 5 years our volunteers have prepared and painted 15 computer rooms before wiring and installing on average 25 computers in each school. All of this I.T. equipment has been kindly donated over recent years by numerous schools and businesses around Ireland.
AIT has provided generators where needed and engaged Camara to install appropriate local educational software to all computers. We have also engaged Camara to provide computers for schools as needed. Local teachers are now training the trainer and schools are linking up to pool resources. Teachers are beginning to use I.T. as a teaching and learning tool. This has resulted in improved attendance in each school and a much higher work ethic.
Leaders have emerged from each school staff who are now willing to present to other local schools not yet in our programme. There has been a high degree of effort from local school principals to drive our project in our absence. Each local community are now being invited to participate in our I.T. Project with past pupils often delivering evening classes.
We plan to introduce I.T into our Early Child Care Programme in 2020 and also plan to support I.T. training in Lesotho College of Education which trains over 200 Primary School Teachers each year but has very few working computers.
Our dedicated volunteers and the Camara staff provide ongoing maintenance and I.T. support as required to our 15 schools.
The Lesotho Dept of Education is financially supporting our plans and particular emphasis will be placed on business entrepreneurship and innovation in future I.T. plans with the aim of involving learners in devising business plans, good bookkeeping and designing and marketing their local products while taking stock of best practise online.