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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) this year equipped more than 1 000 school laboratories with computers and broadband services countrywide.
The parastatal targets to equip more than 600 school laboratories this year as efforts to improve connectivity and bridge the digital divide continue.
The programme is in line with the Second Republic’s thrust to leave no one and no place behind as it rallies to transform the country into an upper-middle-class economy by 2030.
Potraz director general Dr Gift Machengete said broadband is the bedrock of the 4th industrial revolution.
He was speaking in Victoria Falls recently following the launch of the first ever multi-million dollar rail fibre optic project Bandwidth and Cloud Services (BCS) Group.
Dr Machengete said Potraz recognises the socio-economic benefits of broadband and its transformative benefits to national development and to overall quality of life.
Government has been rolling out various programmes and licensing additional service providers to increase the availability of broadband services throughout the country and enable extension of optic fibre backbone footprint to promote e-government and e-business services.
Dr Machengete said there is a need to embrace broadband which should catalyse the 4th industrial revolution.
“In order to create space for new players the authority in 2021 introduced the converged licensing framework which saw the introduction of special licence categories.
“This is because the authority recognises the importance of competition in the sector hence this opening to allow more participants in order to improve access and adoption of broadband services at Government, business, household and individual levels,” said Dr Machengete.
He said in January this year Potraz licensed fibre connections to provide network facilities and network services in
Zimbabwe as it introduced the new licensing regime as a response to technological advancement where all services are now converging on the IT platform.
Fibre connections provide facilities to rural areas with focus on under-served areas that should benefit from 20 percent of broadband facilities.
Some of the targeted marginalised areas are Binga, Siabuwa, Gokwe, Nembudziya, Sanyati, Guruve, Mushumbi, Kanyemba, Murehwa, Mutoko and Nyamapanda.
“The authority will continue to use these roll-out targets as a means to ensure that broadband services are accessible in all parts of the country. We have been creating school laboratories especially in the rural areas for students to have access to internet as we work to improve e-learning.
“We have equipped 1 117 school laboratories this year and that includes universities which did not have gadgets and we target about 695 laboratories in 2023,” said Dr Machengete.
A full computer laboratory has about 30 computers that are fully connected to broadband services.
In 2021 about 22 were equipped because of Covid-19 induced lockdowns.
Dr Machengete said a school computer laboratory helps bridge the digital divide, improve access to ICT in order to improve the schools’ pass rates.
He said the laboratories are set up so that children are not left behind in terms of learning and access to information.
Potraz is using the universal services fund for the project which also involves distribution of computers to provinces.
Health institutions have also benefited with 955 clinics connected countrywide. — @ncubeleon
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