Students in Senegal will soon be using a solar-powered digital learning device.
The device is currently being tested in remote areas where access to electricity and infrastructure is often limited.
The CyberSmart digital learning platform is fitted with learning apps and a projector that displays instructional materials like maps on a screen.
CyberSmart is a solar-charged box that includes a computer, a projector and speakers – just everything teachers would need to teach.
It enables teachers to input all the content that the school or the ministry of education wants onto an open platform, making the learning progress easier to monitor.
Teachers and pupils can move figures around and draw or write on the screen during class.
Many schools in Africa don’t have access to electricity – let alone the Internet, so maintaining such technologies is difficult.
To tackle this hitch, plans are in place to further develop the solar panels in China to make them even more efficient.
So far, the device has been tested in several schools, and the government hopes to roll it out across the country.
African countries have shown a desire to move from the conventional modes of teaching and embrace more technology in the classrooms.
The Kenyan government is still harbouring plans to digitize learning in the country’s schools, and promised to issue free laptops to pupils in primary school.
