AU ITTC plans to roll out an ICT literacy training program for Civil Society in Manicaland, Zimbabwe and Africa. The first phase of the training program is set to commence in June 2004 up to June 2005. Civil Society will be selected after consultations with district administrators, school administrators, government ministries, non-governmental organisations, the provincial knowledge taskforces and organisations in other African countries.

Please note that we have not secured the scholarships yet.

As AU ITTC we are appealing to industry and other donor organisations to fund scholarships that will be used to train 6 people per month in the renowned International Computer Driving License. ICDL is an internationally recognised certification program that certifies a user proficient in basic IT skills and use of the most common applications on the computer. The scholarships are targeted to cover just the tuition. Participants are expected to cover the costs of the examinations.

What has become apparent is that ICT training in Africa is still for the privileged few that appreciate ICT's already and can afford the training. The ordinary civil society still finds that this training is out of reach for them in terms of costs. In order for us to fulfill our vision of promoting the use of ICT's in the surrounding community and Africa, the training has to be affordable. Our need as AUITTC is for funding to provide scholarships to those community people that will be carefully selected to enroll in our renowned International Computer Driving License (ICDL) program.

As we know Africa is faced by many challenges, which are not insurmountable. As an educational institution, we believe we have a pivotal role to educate and train civil society in the use of ICT's so that they can participate in e-learning, e-governance, e-commerce, among many. Without the right quality of training, ICT implementations will not succeed. Internet coverage in countries like Zimbabwe, is said to be a paltry 0.03% based on a population of 12million and this is the pattern across Africa! It is our strong belief, as Africa University Information Technology Training Center, that increased ICT literacy will contribute towards changing these statistics so that the digital divide is reduced. We have a long way to go but as Africa we need to start somewhere, and evaluate the results of what we have implemented regularly.

AUITTC G.08 Windsor/Msasa Bldg, H.Chitepo St. Mutare