By Promise Dube
St Columba’s High School in Bulawayo has launched a Computer Aided Design (CAD) programme which will help learners master practical subjects and architectural designs using computers.
This development comes after St Columba’s launched an online magazine in June that tackles social injustices and is part of digitalisation based literature and skillshare.
Speaking at the school’s prize-giving day ceremony on Tuesday, Vice Chairman of the School Development Committee (SDC), Bongenkosi Maphosa boasted that learners would be able to do 3D designs, and architectural designs using this computer-aided design.
“This programme was introduced by a company called Advanced Design Colleges (ACD) to aid practical subjects such as drawing online using computers and we intend to use it while we gravitate from using old drawing boards to what is new by following technology,” Maphosa said.
The SDC vice chair added the CAD programme was going to assist learners in advancing their skill set.
He also noted that the CAD programme was in a five-year trial and incorporating more subjects that one can do using computers.
“We are moving on with age, as part of the SDC, the chairperson and the committee, we saw it fit to engage this company. Parents were consulted and they agreed to have the programme so we are moving on with this computer-aided design. It is a step in the right direction for St Columba’s as an institution that wants to lead in education. We are excited as a committee to have implemented this programme,” Maphosa said.
Technical manager of ADC, Terence Msipa, said the company was locally based, whose drive is to bring computer aided design to educational institutions.
“We are basically mandated by Auto Desk which is an internationally recognised company to offer CAD in companies. Auto Desk are the makers of CAD software,” said Msipha.
“We bring in a CAD trainer who, using his expertise, will teach and train students in the use of CAD. When we partner with institutions, we bring in a laboratory and at St Columbus we have set up 48 desktop machines.”
A History teacher at St Columba’s said last year, learners received 129 As in her subject, which was “really, a very good pass rate,”
Meanwhile, the school headmaster praised the teachers for producing a 100 percent pass rate and congratulated them for the great job they were doing as learners received prizes for excelling in different subjects as well as those who did well in sports.
“The learners managed to do so well because of the use of ICT because it assisted them during their research while preparing for examinations,” said Thandeka Ndlovu.
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