Acer to roll out educational solutions in Africa

Eager to tap into Africa’s education sector, which has so far been less impacted by the information technology (IT) revolution, Acer is to roll out its new Acer Education Centre partner certification to 15 African countries.
Acer Education Centre is a partnership arrangement that Acer will use to certify technology partners in its drive to ensure that Africa’s education sector benefits from the latest technologies.
This type of partnership arrangement has been established by Acer in South Africa with 15 partners working with educational institutions to boost the relationship and interactions between teachers and students using the latest technologies.
Erik Blom, the education sector BU manager at Acer said the Acer Education Centre channel programme will enable the company recruit a network of regional dealers able to sell, implement and support complete solutions in the education market.
“With this new certification, we want to create a set of partners who have a deep understanding of the specific technology needs of the education market and how Acer’s products can address these requirements,” Blom said.
Programme partners will offer schools and other learning institutions access to products and solutions tailored to their needs, as well as specific expertise around technology in the educational sector. Blom was speaking following the launch of the programme in Uganda where ITec Solutions Ltd., has been appointed as the Acer partner.
Blom said the education market in Africa offers a host of exciting opportunities for Acer and its business partners with a growing number of learning institutions integrating technology into their teaching methods and curricula.
“Technology has a vital role to play in education by supplementing classroom teaching, giving learners access to information sources and preparing them for a tech-driven workplace,” Blom said.
“It also helps teachers and administrators to carry out administrative tasks more efficiently, and can fill gaps in subjects and areas where there aren’t enough teachers on hand.”
Acer showed offer a product that lets teachers interact electronically with their students using its ‘Acer Classroom Manager’ – a touch-screen white board that is linked to a projector, netbooks on student’s desks allowing for a seamless interaction between students and teachers.
Blom said class manager has been used successfully in South Africa where remote access capabilities of classroom manager have been implemented.
“As a global leader in personal computing solutions, Acer wants to play an active role in developing and cultivating the school of the future, providing innovative and extremely affordable solutions to the global education community,” Blom said.
He warned that it was vital for institutions and schools to choose the right technologies, ones that are simple to install and easy to use, reliable and affordable.