• Rectron opened its first Technolab in the Eastern Cape this week.
• The Technolab features R500 000 in equipment donated by the likes of AOC, EcoFlow, Cricut and Scancode.
• Ntabenkonyana SS School near Middledrift was selected as the lab would benefit both the school and the community.

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey was published last week and it highlighted that youth unemployment increased by 1.1 percentage points to 46.5 percent in the first quarter for 2023.

One area that presents an opportunity for the youth is in the context of digital skills as detailed in the Young People Not in Employment, Education or Training (YNEET) project [PDF] heralded by The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Together these bodies want to “contribute to a digital skills labour market ecosystem, strengthen institutional capacity to manage data, and coordinate targeted digital skills development and labour intermediation services.

Last week, local tech distributor Rectron helped along the final goal of providing digital education to the youth through the launch of a Technolab in the Eastern Cape.

The firm’s first in the region, the Technolab is located at Ntabenkonyana SS School near Middledrift.

Working closely with Ziphozihle Siwa Foundation, Rectron identified Ntabenkonyana SS School as a location for the Technolab that would benefit the school and the community.

Following numerous consultations to determine what the school needed, R500 000 in equipment was secured to outfit the Technolab with computers, displays and software. To keep the lights on during loadshedding, EcoFlow donated 24 DELTA portable power stations.

Other brands including Cricut, Scancode and AOC, all sponsored equipment for the Technolab.

“While access to digital devices like computers is important, training and support are crucial to ensure that the Technolab lives up to its full potential,” Kutlwano Rawana, Chief of People at Rectron said in a statement.

“On top of the donation and installation, we will work with teachers at Ntabenkonyana SS School and the Eastern Cape Department of Basic Education to ensure that they are empowered to support the institution’s educational outcomes and promote digital literacy,” Rawana added.

The distributor says that a previous recipient of a Technolab, Tshelenkosi Secondary School in Stanger achieved a 90.3 percent Matric pass rate for 2022. This is a notable increase from its 2021 pass rate of 65 percent.

“On the surface this might be a high-tech facility, but on a deeper level this is an important investment in our community’s future. Rectron’s Technolab will be a vital tool in providing the right digital education and skills development to our learners,” said the principal at Ntabenkonyana SS School, Charmaine Nel in a statement.

While we commend Rectron for building a Technolab, we can’t help but notice a collection of what appear to be temporary/pit toilets in the bottom right corner of the header image above.

A Technolab that helps improve digital education is all good and well, perhaps we should be focusing on making sure our children have access to basic things like proper sanitation before we plonk them down in front of PCs, potentially doing the worst jobs.