Concord Times (Freetown)
Olusegun Ogundeji
11 June 2008
Freetown — For Abubakar Jalloh, a student of Prince Of Wales (POW) Secondary School, the commissioning of a computer centre with internet facilities in his school will expose him and other globally-minded students to the world.
"The computer centre will open the world to us in terms of information technology," he said.
As the first government-owned school computer center powered by solar energy was commissioned at POW, many students, including Jalloh, were aglow with excitement.
They kept trooping into the centre situated on the top floor of a storey building block of classrooms where twenty Dell laptop computers with fully installed internet were placed in wooden compartments with lids.
Majority of the students are computer illiterate. They need to go a long way to familiarize themselves with computers, especially laptops.
Surfing the Internet, in particular, for many young Sierra Leoneans especially those of secondary school-going age, is a luxury which many of them believe can be forgone for other needs.
It costs Le 4,000 to use the internet at a cyber café within Freetown metropolis. The price is higher in other major cities like Kenema, the country's third largest city, which has just two internet cafés.
And to enroll for a computer training course to acquire basic skills like DTP, will cost an average of Le60, 000.
Jalloh cannot wait to use these facilities provided to him and other students for free by old boys of his school, the Prince Of Wales Alumni Association (POWAA)-Georgia (USA) Branch.
POWAA President, Samuel O. Atere-Roberts, believes the centre would have a positive impact on the students because most of them are now realizing that they cannot graduate from school without acquiring basic computer skills that would be provided at the centre.
He too shared in Jalloh's view.
"The centre will make them acquire introductory skills about computer such as using the Power point, Internet, Microsoft Word etc. The Internet for example, is an accumulation of the information they need. It opens them to the world," he said.
He added that POWAA is planning to expand the centre as it is now clear to them that the 1,200 students in the senior secondary (last three years of the secondary school) classes are likely to increase in the next few academic sessions.
After the commissioning ceremony on Tuesday, POW principal had these to say: "We are planning to include it into their curriculum so that they'll have enough time to concentrate on it and we hope that sooner, it would become an examinable subject," says Mrs. Millicent Ogoo. "Many of us are not well versed in computer studies, so the centre will afford us, including teachers, the opportunity to improve our IT knowledge." She added that since the centre is solar-powered -14 panels totaling 2,310 watts with ten deep cycle batteries for storage of generated power, it will be a reliable source of information for students as there would not be any fear of cut in power supply.
For its maintenance, she admitted that the school needs a lot of money to maintain the computer centre so they will have to look up to the school's board of governors, old boys both at home and abroad, and the education ministry as it is a government school, to sustain the project.
Last month, Mrs. Ogoo said though the school has been getting support from organizations but these solar system and laptops are a thing of pride for them. "We are very proud of the project. They have really done well. It also shows that they have concern for the school," she had said. "The computers will help school children to learn about the new technology in the world." This development is a good step in the right direction and other schools are expected to emulate. But how did the idea of a solar powered computer centre for POW come to being?
A member of the school's Board of Governors, Mr. Eben Strasser-King submitted a document that listed his personal views about the needs of POW including the estimated cost for the implementation in February 2006.
One of the needs dealt with improving the operations of the computer centre. Other needs are lack of enough computers to service the student population, lack of regular and reliable electricity supply, misuse and cost and unreliability of related internet support services amongst others.
Mr. Atere-Roberts, a professional engineer and the then vice president of POWAA, Georgia chapter, reviewed the document and developed a project to address the computer centre needs.
By 2006, he presented his proposal to fellow old boys to raise funds for the implementation of the project which is now the actualized computer centre which was commissioned yesterday.
While the fundraising was ongoing, Atere-Roberts took the lead to develop project specifications for the procurement of solar equipment and computers. A technical committee of Princewaleans was later formed to prepare a plan for the implementation of the project.
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My name is Samuel Atere-Roberts and I am President of the Prince of Wales Alumni Association, Georgia Chapter, and also the Project Manager of the Solar Powered Computer Center for the Prince Of Wales School. I will like to thank Allafrica.com, on behalf of all the chapters, including Georgia, Maryland/Washington DC, New Jersey, California, and the United Kingdom/Ireland for covering the commissioning ceremony and provifing this report on the project. However, as I have reiterated several times during the last two weeks, this project was a team effort involving contributions from all the Chapters noted above including support from the Freetown Chapter. I will appreciate if Allafrica.com will make this clarification on all future articles on this project. Thank you for your understanding.
In response to the comment from Mr. E. Tucker, I will like to confirm that a total of 2.3 kW of |Solar Power was also commissioned as part of this project. The classroom housing the Computer Center is currently only powered by solar energy.
Regards Samuel Atere-Roberts President, POWAA, Georgia Chapter