Times Of Swaziland: 40 schools benefit from Swazi MTN, Real Image

40 schools benefit from Swazi MTN, Real Image
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 SIBUSISO ZWANE on 28/09/2012 00:00:00


EZULWINI - In what can be described as a move to revolutionise education in our
schools, Swazi MTN has partnered with leading IT solutions and Internet service
provider Real Image to provide fast, efficient Internet services to 40 schools
in the country.
The project, which began as a pilot in February this year, will ensure schools
offering Information Communication and Technology in their curriculum get to
enjoy Internet services via 3G technology at an affordable rate.
The project is expected to be in full swing by the beginning of examinations
next week. Explaining to a meeting of Ministry of Education and Training
personnel including the director of education, ITC teachers and principals from
selected schools, Swazi MTN Marketing Officer, Mbongeni Mtshali said they had
already piloted the concept with four schools in the country. Swazi MTN selected
one school in each region and the pilot commenced on February 26 2012 and ended
on March, 25 2012.
"MTN assisted in setting up the routers and the test SIMs. Schools then
facilitated their network connectivity to the router and fully used the solution
in order to get a true reflection of the data usage. Schools were expected to
safely manage the usage of the service to avoid misuse and unauthorised access,"
said Mtshali. Among the benefits of using Swazi MTN Internet schools
connectivity solution, is that schools will pay a standard amount each month and
the service would be automatically switched off in the event that the data limit
was exceeded. This allows schools to plan and budget for their data expenditure.
Swazi MTN Head of Sales and Distribution Mark Witthuhn said the organisation
felt an obligation to bring the 3G service to schools and the people. Witthuhn
said when Swazi MTN received the 3G licence in October 2011, it allowed them to
deliver fast Internet services to the people, but Swazi MTN realised that
important government sectors such as the education sector were not fully
exploiting the benefits of 3G which has done wonders in improving education in
other developing countries.
　
　
"We have seen how the private sector is benefitting and we see no reason why the
public sector should not benefit as well. MTN supports the ICT teacher
implementation plan and we are trying to bring closer to the people world-class
broadband quality, the same as in South Africa and the rest of the world,"
Witthuhn said.