You certainly have come across a printer, scanner or a gadget that has an Epson label. Those machines are made by Epson which is Japanese electronics manufacturing company. It is Epson’s European subsidiary Epson Europe B.V which is about to set up an office in Harare in a week’s time.
The motive behind Epson’s entrance in Zimbabwe is that it sees a grand opportunity for it to exploit in our education sector.
The government has for so long planned to modernise our education sector through digitisation but it’s happening at a tortoise pace. Even so Epson thinks that the little that’s happening has set the wheels in emotion enough to draw them here. As the Herald reports, Epson’s SADC region development manager, Mrs Alison Ekland said :
As the Government of Zimbabwe has started the process of modernising schools through adoption of ICTs, we found it worthwhile to invest here
What also brought us here is the change in the business in the country. I mean, we can see that there is political willingness, there are changes in pro-business reforms that the Government has in terms of ownership, providing a huge potential.
The primary target is the education sector, participate in its digitisation as called for by the Minister of Education Professor Mavima through bringing efficient latest equipment.
It’s not an everyday story to see this kind of a company establishing a base in a (struggling) country like Zimbabwe. It’s both charming and promising to have a global company like Epson willing to assist us with the task of digitisation. That’s why I implore the government to be serious with these kind of gestures.
Technology/digitisation can make imparting education stress-free for both students and teachers (educators). The ever-increasing use of ICT tools such as mobile phones in Zimbabwe only makes it needful for education to be digitized and be accessible on our handheld devices.
This other day, I was watching my nephew on his phone playing a game which was simultaneously teaching him arithmetic. In his case, education is lively, participatory and can be accessed even outside the classroom.
We can agree that in this fast world, it only makes sense for education to be accessible on-the-go so that students can learn at their own speed both within and outside the classroom.
