Ministerial Breakfast for the Class of 2016 Top Achievers

MIDRAND JOHANNESBURG - The Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga together with her Deputy Minister, Enver Surty, today, congratulated the 2016 Top Matric Achievers at the Ministerial Breakfast hosted by the Vodacom Foundation.

The Ministerial Breakfast is an annual event where the Minister of Basic Education, the Deputy

Minister and key stakeholders meet with the country’s top performing matriculants to celebrate their outstanding results. Following the meet and great session, the Minister will announce the 2016 NSC Matric results to the nation in a live broadcast from 18h00 on SABC at the Vodacom head office in Midrand

Speaking at the breakfast, Takalani Netshitenzhe, the Chief Officer for Corporate Affairs at Vodacom Group said: “We are specifically honored, to be in the presence of some of the best brains that this country has. Young achievers, you make us and the country proud.”

Vodacom is committed to promoting education opportunities especially for learners in under-developed areas. Initiatives such as the e-school, teacher learning centers, Vodacom NXT LVL, including partnership with some universities on e-learning during the 'fees must fall' campaign further demonstrate that Vodacom is committed to making a contribution to the emerging digital economy.

“To the parents and the learners here today, Vodacom is not just a mobile communication company, but we also have a solid corporate social investment commitment. In the past 17years, we have invested over a billion rands in the social  upliftment of South Africans and in markets where  Vodacom operates. We are always guided by the reality that we exist in a society with high levels of inequality. Therefore, we cannot turn a blind eye, we need to lend a hand” Netshitenzhe said.

Other Vodacom initiatives include:

• The Mobile Education programme, which is Vodacom's holistic approach to ensuring sustainable benefit to educators and learners by providing Internet connectivity, ICT equipment, content and teacher training through 91 ICT centres across the country.
• Vodacom Tries for Books campaign. The programme is an educational content application, which is freely available on tablets at the 81 Vodacom ICT resource centres that are situated across the country. The e-library has been up loaded with e-books made available by publishing partners including Via Afrika, Oxford University Press, Shuter & Shooter and FunDza. Internet connectivity and access to the e-libraries is free.
• In a bid to help address skills development and job creation within the ICT sector, Vodacom together with its partners Independent Development Trust (IDT) and Cisco embarked on a drive to help empower unemployed youth with ICT skills training. The partnership trains unemployed youth in ICT skills and helps further develop them into ICT entrepreneurs. To date, 273 trainees have gained basic computer skills, IT essentials, enterprise development and business skills through the programme.
• Vodacom Millionaires every month donates a fully equipped computer centres and provides free access to the Internet to disadvantaged schools. More than 420 schools have been given computer centres and free Internet connectivity through Vodacom Millionaire.

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