JICA (The Japan International Cooperation Agency) continues to work tirelessly in the cause of pre-service primary teacher education. Negotiations are conducted by their senior officials in PNG with University of Electro-Communication in the city of Chofu, which lies in the Tokyo metropolitan areas, are well advanced to bring 3,000 tablets to the country for use in the primary teacher colleges. A further 1,000 will go to the Department of Education In the case of the 3,000 tablets donated to DHERST, these will be used by lecturers and students at the primary teacher colleges for improving teaching and learning, particularly in connection with the upcoming maths and science project that will be by Japanese experts.
Students themselves will use the tablets for lesson preparation, research, implementation of lessons and self-learning with digital content in line with the new pre-service primary teacher education curriculum.
Professor Ishigaki of the University of Electro-Communication is spearheading the Smile Tablet Project for Improving Teaching and Learning, through which the tablets will be donated, with Video Research Ltd in Japan whose Corporate Social Responsibility Program is providing essential backing for the project.
Although these Samsung tablets will have had previous owners, the total value of the donation will be in the region of K4 million. As they arrive in PNG, they will be checked by JICA project staff, initialized by experts of DHERST and then distributed to the primary teacher colleges.
DHERST is grateful to the donors and the many officials in Japan and PNG for their efforts in securing these machines, particularly at a time when digitalization in the higher education sector is so vital to the process of continual quality improvement in learning and teaching for current and future generations.
Declaimer: This is the exact version as it appeared in DHERST Quarterly Newsletter June 2020, Volume 3|Issue 2 extract appeared in the National Newspaper on Friday July 3, 2020