USAID Primary Education Project

The first Student Support Technician Clubs (SSTC) established.

On April 24th-25th in the Primary School, Vlado Tasevski, the first training for 20 SSTC teachers-mentors was held. The training modules covered network troubleshooting and problem solving in operating systems. The teachers were from 5 schools in Skopje plus one school from Tetovo, Bitola and Kocani. On return to their schools, the trained teachers began to establish student support technician clubs in their respected schools.
The second phase of the training will continue in September when an additional 90 schools will be covered.

With the current increase of the number of PC’s in the schools, and with the additional computers from the Government’s procurement awaiting deployment, there is an urgent need for teams that will provide technical support on a local level.

To alleviate this problem PEP is helping schools to establish Student Support Technician Clubs (SSTC). The SSTC will consist of 7 or more students (depending of the number of PC’s in the school) from 7th and 8th grade. These students will be students that show interest in the area of computer studies.
The main purpose of the clubs will be to provide technical support on a school level by:

Maintaining the school network
Enabling uninterrupted use of the PC’s in the school by having a designated person in the PC lab outside of the regular classes.
Regular supervision of the computers and their functionality and notification of the IT teachers in case they run into a problem that can not be solved.

Continual functionality of these clubs will be ensured with the help of the following:

After the first year, the 8th grade students will mentor the 7th grade students.
At the end of the school year, the students that are finishing 7th grade, with the help of their teachers will select certain number of 6th grade students that will replace the 8th graders.

In this process, a large role will be played by two teachers from each school. Those are the IT teacher (technical) and a non-IT teacher.

The role of the non-it teachers will be to make a schedule for the students that will be in the lab outside of regular classes. He/she will be also responsible for collecting any reports for malfunction of the PC’s in the school both from the co-workers and the students. The non-it teacher will dispatch the Student Support members to work on the reported problem and to get feedback on the outcome.

The IT teachers will be responsible for solving the problems that the members of the Student Support Technician Clubs are not able to solve.

The School Director will have an important role in enabling the students to work freely in the lab and in any area that has PC’s within the school building. The principal will also report to PEP on the success of the Student Support Technician Clubs.

By involving students with an interest in the IT field and giving them practical experience and training through the SSTCs, more young people will develop the skills needed in the IT industry.

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