Johannesburg-based Charter College International High School, an independent school, is moving classrooms online with Avaya Spaces, the cloud-based collaboration solution from Avaya Holdings Corp.
The move comes in the wake of a school shut down after the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster due to COVID-19 a week ago.
The shift to digital learning will enable students at Charter College to continue learning amid a school shutdown following a government directive that ordered all public and private schools across the country to be closed until after the Easter weekend to help contain the spread of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Charter College is providing digital classrooms to its students through Avaya Spaces, which enables people and organisations to connect and collaborate remotely – integrating chat, voice, video, online meetings, content sharing and more with clear use cases in the education sector. The solution enables Charter College teachers to set up virtual learning ‘spaces’ for each class they teach, delivering video-based lessons while also setting assignments for and following up with individual students.
In addition, Avaya Spaces also provides an easy way for parents to keep in touch with school administrators and teachers on the progress of their children’s education.
Megan Fry, acting country manager – South Africa, Avaya, said: “We’re delighted to support Charter College as it adopts Avaya Spaces to enable reliable communications between parents, students and teachers to minimise learning disruption amid school closures. We’re working closely with the communities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we will continue to help however we can.”
“Our first priority is the safety of our students. During a global pandemic, our goal is to provide continuity of their classes while ensuring we’re following the most up-to-date health advice from government bodies. Avaya Spaces enables us to achieve this,” said Alison Dodge, principal, Charter College International High School.
“We join a growing number of educational institutions worldwide who have had to temporarily cancel in-person classes, but we’ve worked extremely quickly to move lessons online and ensure that our students are still being provided with a top education.”
Working with Avaya, Charter College has deployed 25 Business licenses for its teachers and staff – enough to support over 1,000 student users in virtual classrooms.
