Ericsson connects 5,000 African students, teachers with e-learning tools

An estimated 5,000 African students and their teachers have been connected by Ericsson with electronic learning tools for the 21st century education.

Vice President, Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility at  Ericsson, Mr. Elaine Weidman, made this disclosure to ITRealms Online in a press statement.

The VP said that eight secondary schools have now received the Personal Computing (PC) as a service solution, even as more than 500 multi-year scholarships have been planned to be distributed in 2012.

According to him, eight secondary schools in Africa have now received the PC as a service solution, a cloud-computing solution that provides schools with a low-maintenance, easy-to-use model that is optimized for mobile broadband networks.

“The deployment is part of Connect-To-Learn’s initiative in the Millennium Village clusters in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda,” he said.

Additionally, he pointed out that over 500 scholarships will be distributed before the end of year 2012; thanks to Connect-To- Learn partners which include Ericsson, the Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund, SpinMaster, JM Eagle and a number of individual contributors.

He explained that these scholarships would cover tuition, boarding and other school-related expenses.

“Mobile and broadband technology is a key enabler for access to a quality education in all communities, even the poorest and most rural. Delivering cloud-based computers and connecting them in the eight schools is a major step in our mission to bring a quality secondary education to more students,” the VP said.

PC as a Service uses laptops on a mobile broadband connection, and allows students to have access to the news, information and the latest educational content, as well as fellow students around the world. For teachers, it allows greater focus on students, as maintenance of the solution is done remotely. 

Remmy Nweke

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