By President Robert Mugabe says the ongoing roll out of Community Information Centres (CICs) will go a long way in biding the gap between the elite and the marginalised in terms information access.
He said this while commissioning the Bindura CIC over the weekend.
By Pearson Mbendera
These E-learning devices put us ahead in education. The people will know what’s beyond our world. It will take us time, but we have already started the journey. We don’t want our youths to simply be employees, but they must also become employers. But they need ICT knowledge. Our children should be engineers, technicians and they must develop.
Over 80 CICs are already operational and about 80 more to be completed by the year end.
President Mugabe also added that lack of computer literacy in Zimbabwe, was shocking despite government having distributed a number of computers to various school in communal areas.
“For the people to have knowledge in different areas; they need computers and that’s why we are establishing these CICs. Computers are still a marvel. But once taught people will know how to use them and be able to access information instantly,” he said.
ICT minister Supa Mandiwanzira,said, “As we go ahead building these CICs, we are not just providing internet facilities or just printing facilities, we are also providing training facilities so that the people in the community have an idea, a basic idea of how to access information on the computer. We are also providing basic computer training programmes.”
He called upon the business community to join in as the CICs are also providing business opportunities to the country.
“The initiative to computerise our communities through the schools, through the CICs offers a huge opportunity to the business community. The industry must retool, and retooling involves ICT. These computers are being imported; they need to be assembled here. Smartphones must be manufactured and assembled here in Zimbabwe. We are inviting the business community to see these business opportunity.”
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