Huawei helps Botswana's education development, more Chinese companies joining in

GABORONE - China's telecom giant Huawei has sponsored an award in Botswana's education sector and vowed continuous efforts to support the country's development.

The Annual Excellence Awards ceremony held by Botswana Examinations Council on Thursday in the capital Gaborone were intended to encourage students with good performance in national examinations and honor schools with remarkable work.

Huawei sponsored this year's Best Schools and Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) award, donating in total 60,000 pula (about $6,300) to the three best schools and their PTAs.

"Huawei has been operating in Botswana for 17 years. In those years, Huawei has not only made big business achievements, but also demonstrated itself as a responsible corporate citizen through a number of corporate social responsibility (CSR) events," said Abel Deng, managing director of Huawei Botswana, during the ceremony.

The company has been offering support to many African countries in the past years. Last week, it helped launch an e-Libraries program to help boost literacy in South Africa, where only 15 percent of the population have access to a community library.

Huawei also announced to offer 15 training opportunities for top Ghanaian students majoring in information and communications technology in the next four years.

Chinese companies have financed building schools in Angola, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and other African countries.

In terms of education, China has built 150 primary and secondary schools in Africa and trained a total of 47,000 people of various professions since 2012.

China in 2009 announced that it would construct about 50 standard schools in Africa to support efforts on education improvement on the continent.

In 2012, China announced its African Talents Program: to train 30,000 personnel in various sectors for Africa in three years and offer 18,000 government scholarships. In that year alone, China offered 6,717 government scholarships to African countries.

A major focus of Huawei's CSR in Botswana lies in the support to Botswana's education development, Deng said.

"Huawei believes education is the foundation of a country's development and that young people are the future of a country, hence today's sponsorship for Best Schools and Best PTAs," he said.

In May, the company donated 60 Huawei tablet personal computers to three schools in the western town of Ghanzi when marking the 2015 World Telecommunications and Information Society Day, in hopes of bridging the digital divide in the country's remote areas.

"As a foreign company which is committed to its long-term presence and development in Botswana, Huawei will continuously contribute to the development of education in Botswana as well as to other causes of the nation," said Deng.