More 'smart' classrooms to be rolled out in Gauteng schools

03 March 2015 - 13:46 By Shenaaz Jamal and Penwell Dlamini
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The new concept of smart classrooms in the public sector in Gauteng will be increased this year from six to 80 as government tries to eliminate chalkboard and paper.

In December, Gauteng education MEC began the pilot project in six schools in the province. This project was aimed at learning at how subject content, teacher training and assessment can be undertaken in a paperless classrooms.

In her 2015/16 budget presented before the provincial legislature today, Gauteng finance MEC Barbara Creecy announced that the initiative would be boosted with an allocation of R1.6-billion for “classrooms of the future”.

A further 80 schools will benefit from the pilot project this month.

This initiative is run concurrently with the Gauteng Broadband Network, which received a boost of R250-million. The GBN will see all public institutions like schools, hospitals and government building receiving proper broadband connectivity.

A further R100-milliion has been allocated to expand government nutrition programme in impoverished schools.

The budget for school infrastructure has also been increased by R403-million from R1.9-billion to R2.6-billion.

Creecy echoed Premier David Makhura's focus on township economies by setting aside an additional R137-million to the Gauteng department of economic development to kickstart initiatives that help township businesses.

“At present the provincial government spends about five percent of its R10-billion procurement budget for goods and services on township enterprises. We committed to increasing this spend to 30% over the next four years,” she said.

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