Pretoria - Teachers and students at the Tshwane North College (TNC) for Further Education and Training are reaping the rewards of the college's decision to partner with the Department of Communications.
TNC and the department have joined forces to provide internet connectivity to the college and its campuses.
The college's acting Principal Charles Pule said there had been frustrations over the college's lack of ability to connect its six campuses to head office, to each other and to the internet.
"The lack of resources at the college, especially the availability of an advanced communication and information infrastructure (internet connectivity), had been hampering both the students' and teachers' performance... Internet connectivity is a necessity for colleges wishing to excel as it forms the heart and soul of teaching and learning," Pule added.
The college approached the department for assistance and a partnership was formed.
The contract for the installation of 8Mbps WAN to connect the campuses and the head office was awarded to iBurst. The links iBurst installed at the campuses have enabled high speed internet connectivity as well as a voice solution that includes up to 10 telephone lines per site.
Other benefits include free calls between the sites, high speed data transfers between campuses, a highly reliable network and reduced telecoms costs to the college and its campuses.
Pule said the internet connectivity would help improve the college's operations.
The connectivity had already helped the college access examination papers when the papers were not delivered as expected.
The interconnectivity has also enhanced the college's ability to establish direct access and reach to one of the remote campuses in Hammanskraal which for many years could not be connected by any other network operator.
Administrative processes have become seamless, more efficient and user-friendly for current and prospective students.
"We plan to take advantage of the broadband connectivity as we have already seen a marked improvement in student performance as a result of the project. We anticipate that the TNC will continue to see an improvement in its academic results during the first quarter of 2012," said Pule.
iBurst CEO Thami Mtshali said he was pleased to provide a solution to the TNC connectivity problem.
Wireless connectivity played an important role in the development of the youth, he said, adding that one of the key benefits of this project was that teachers were now able to access a wider variety of teaching tools and methods, while the students were able to empower themselves with the necessary information.
"Effective communication tools also serve to make any operation or organisation much more efficient," said Mtshali.
