This Universal Promise micro-project, which will jumpstart our third computer laboratory project at a school in South Africa, will fund the first two laptops and start to change the computer literacy rate for over 450 children and educators at a K - 7 primary school. These laptops symbolize the first tangible step to ensure computer acumen and uplift children from the chokehold of poverty in rural South Africa, where unemployment runs at 70%.
A primary school of 450 children in South Africa suffers from a paucity of exposure to computers, curricular development, software usage, Internet research, and twenty-first century technology. This micro-project will diminish the possibility of students falling behind, underscore the importance of education, and keep them in school. Consequently, the cycle of poverty will be interrupted in rural South Africa, leading the region to better paying jobs and reduced unemployment.
This project will, from an early age, help students be computer literate. Whether or not we like the onslaught and ubiquity of technology, it is a reality; students without extensive exposure and ultimate expertise fall behind and struggle much more than peers who have built an impressive computer foundation, including Microsoft software exposure, Internet acumen, research and writing skills, and general fluidity in the computer field.
Since the installation of our first two labs (in 2015 and in 2020), computer literacy amongst educators and students has risen to 100%, the pass rates, especially in English and mathematics, have improved, and the matric (high school exam) pass rates have improved, too; we would like to see that same growth unfold at St. Ignatius Primary School. Computer Science and other popular, important, impactful fields, would be in students' sights, but only with proper, early intervention and training.
