The 10 South African teachers competing for the title of ISPA SuperTeacher 2014 have been named in the run-up to iWeek this week.
The country’s premier Internet industry annual event has culminated in the ISPA SuperTeacher of the Year Award for the past 13 years. Hosted by the ZA Central Registry (ZACR) and the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), iWeek this year is taking place from 17 to 19 September 2014 at the Indaba Hotel, Spa and Conference Centre in Fourways, Johannesburg.
The ISPA SuperTeacher of the Year Award is set to take place on the evening of Wednesday 17 September.
CoZa Cares Foundation is one of the country’s leading ICT in education advocates and manages the ISPA SuperTeacher of the Year competition. This year, the following South African teachers have been selected as ISPA SuperTeacher of the Year Finalists and are now in the running for the SuperTeacher of the Year Award and two new awards that will be unveiled next week: Mabore Lekalakala (Toronto Primary School), Mmatsididi Magoro (Toronto Primary School), Chipa Maimela, (Lekota Senior Secondary), Ntsoaki Masenya, (Mashigoana Primary School), Simon Mosiwa Matlebjane (Mountainview Secondary School), Sehlabanelo Mogale (Toronto Primary School), Esther Sekitla Mpe (Toronto Primary School), Anthony Peters (Parklands College), Warren Sparrow (Rondebosch College) and Sadike Kekana (Toronto Primary School).
Each teacher was selected on the merits of a project submitted. A central theme of the projects was to demonstrate how IT skills could best be used to benefit the classroom environment, learners and the surrounding community.
“Our drive is to facilitate a South African educational environment in which technology is integrated into modern teaching by fully-capacitated teachers. Increasingly, local teachers are expected to present lessons using world-class technology,” says Fiona Wallace, CEO of the CoZa Cares Foundation.
She adds that CoZa Cares’ work has taken place primarily in North West and Limpopo where there is a need for establishing sustainable ICT environments at under-resourced schools. Ms Wallace said that, aside from its flagship capacity-building programme, which is conducted in parallel with managing the annual ISPA SuperTeacher of the Year competition, CoZa Cares had implemented several projects to boost access to e-learning resources.
One of these, for example, is an Open Educational Resource digital content delivery system able to be accessed by thousands of learners and teachers.