Multichoice Group is a prominent video entertainment and internet company in Africa. This past week, the corporation launched its Back-to-School campaign at the Jan Mohr Secondary School in Windhoek. The campaign aims to improve resources for education in Namibia.
The initiative was organized by Minister of Education, Arts and Culture Katrina Hanse-Himarwa in order to advocate for a more comprehensive Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) education.
The MultiChoice Resource Center Program was established to improve learning resources in remote areas across the continent. The organization is working directly with the ministry to meet the needs of education in Namibia. The program utilizes digital satellite technology in order to provide highly developed, updated educational materials to even the most rural communities.
MultiChoice is providing flatscreen televisions with Personal Video Recording (PVC) decoders, a mounting bracket and a satellite dish to various educational institutions across Namibia. The package will offer global educational content through channels such as Business Day TV, BBC World News, Mind-Set, NBC, History, BBC Knowledge, Animal Planet, Nat Geo Wild, National Geographic and Discovery Channel.
Since it began in 2004, MultiChoice’s partnership with the Ministry of Education in Namibia has outfitted over 300 schools. They have also provided all staff members at each of these MultiSource Resource Center schools with training on how to use the technology, as well as seminars on how to effectively incorporate the equipment into each school’s curriculum.
Over the past 15 years, MultiChoice has established more than 1,900 programs in 29 countries across Africa. The next step for MultiChoice, in conjunction with the Namibian government, is to focus on upgrading the existing MultiChoice Resource Center schools over the course of the next three years in order to promote the quality of education in Namibia.
Multiple studies conducted in the region have shown that ICT may be the most viable and cost-effective means of improving access to and quality of secondary education in Namibia. However, the Namibian government cannot afford to implement such regimes on its own, so collaborative partnerships through corporate social investments, such as MultiChoice, are essential.
– Jaime Viens
Photo: Flickr