COMPUTER LAB FOR A SCHOOL WITH MAJORITY ROMA STUDENTS
Date: 01/11/2003
Project Summary: The project has targeted the Cumhuriyet Primary School with a 90% majority of Roma children in Edirne town (Thrace region of Turkey). The Roma leaders in the neighborhood, the parents and the representatives of the school have highlighted the need to improve the quality of the education, through access to technology and alignment of the schools programmes with other educational institutions of the kind. The project of establishing a computer lab in the Cumhuriyet School, aimed at enabling children from a disadvantaged community to share in the same educational standards as the other students in the city, to increase parents and students trust and influence positively the dropping out rate. Therefore, the computer lab consisted in 10 computers provided to the school together with the technical assistance for its establishment and functioning.
Project Goals: To reduce the educational drop out rate between Roma and non Roma students in marginal communities through contributing the improvement in the quality of the educational process.
Project Beneficiaries: The direct beneficiaries of the project were 250 students from Cumhuriyet Primary School in Edirne with a higher proportion (90%) of Roma students. The school has a total number of 480 students, but the computer and foreign language lessons start with the 5th grade in accordance with the curriculum which makes the number of the direct beneficiaries to be 250 students / school. On the other hand, all the students of the school during the life-time of the provided computers will benefit from the project.
Implemented Activities:
The projects activities consisted in providing 10 computers to establish a laboratory in Cumhuriyet Primary School from the most disadvantaged area in Edirne. The schools administration provided the laboratory room space and appropriate fixtures and fittings and IBC provided computers and software for the lab. IBC also took charge of the installation and cabling of the network in the lab.
