SHAWCO IT

As some of you know, I am a volunteer for the SHAWCO IT project in Khayalitsha. The project tries to teach high school kids from Khayalitsha (grade 10 - 12) IT skills like using computers and M$ Office. Today was the closing function - kids who attended regularly were awarded certificates; there were some boring (and not so boring) speeches and some food.

In many ways the project is remarkable and highly necessary - IT skills are important in the new millennium (even the checkout ladies in separate and Pick 'n Pay use quite sophisticated computererised systems to ring up purchases) and are crucial tools that are needed by students. In the environment that is Khayalitsha, the project is a major highlight in this regard.

However there are many questions that remain unanswered:

• Can they really apply what we have tried to teach them?
• Have they understood what we tried to teach them?
• Did we teach them the right things?
• Is teaching them M$ Office enough?
• How are the kids going to effectively retain what they have been thought?
• What about the kids that were not in the project?
• What about adults in Khayalitsha?

Some of the questions are easy to guess but the later questions are the really crucial ones - especially considering the fact that the centre cost about R250 000 but is only used for about 16 hours a week for about 30 weeks of the year. For the rest of the time the centre is effectively a white elephant.

SHAWCO does not have the means to run the centre for longer periods of time, and unfortunately there are many political issues that run beneath SHAWCO. Only time will tell if the true potential of the SHAWCO centre can be achieved.