WHEN a school has been part of a community for 150 years, it takes something special to show that it has retained its reputation for educational excellence, kept up with the evolving digital world of the fourth industrial revolution, and is still steaming ahead.
Collegiate Girls’ High School in Gqeberha showed that they are still at the cutting edge of education, as they were when the school opened in 1874 by having Pepper, South Africa’s first humanoid robot, ready to meet arrivals at the recent Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) Week.
This is one of the premier events held recently to celebrate the school’s sesquicentennial (150th anniversary).
“We were proud to be associated through STEAM week with a school that, like Standard Bank, which was established in 1862, has contributed to South African society for so long. It was appropriate that at this time in the school’s history the Standard Bank Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) programme was featured at an all-girls’ education institution,” said Standard Bank’s Eastern Cape provincial head for Business Banking, Leigh-Anne de Witt.
Louise Erasmus, Collegiate principal, showed appreciation to Standard Bank as the primary sponsors of the STEAM programme.
“With the support of Standard Bank, we presented a STEAM event that left an indelible mark on our school’s history,” she said.
STEAM week, which ran from March 4 to 8, included a STEAM Expo open to all Collegiate learners, their parents, other schools in the area, and local community members. Exhibitors drawn from various technical fields, the PV solar and renewable energy sector, sustainability experts, and small businesses, participated.
Other events included a career discussion session, and a STEAM Talks Evening. Leading speakers included Professor Justin Jonas (of the Square Kilometre Array and MeerKAT Radio Telescopes programme) and Yanesh Naidoo, supported by the Jendamark and Odin Manufacturing teams that won the 2023 Africa Tech Week event.
“It is through events like the Collegiate STEAM week that we can begin closing the gender gap in a sector important to building the nation’s future.
“Adding features such as a micro:bit and coding challenge, overseen by the Standard Bank Kuunda team, and a Collegiate tech showcase, added to the excitement and, hopefully, will attract more girls into considering tech careers, helping to change sectors in which only 34 percent of the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) are women,” added Erasmus.
“By outlining the opportunities available in technical fields, we hoped to encourage Collegiate’s learners to consider futures in technical fields once they matriculate, so that they could become the women tech entrepreneurs and skilled technicians contributing to the tech sector’s future,” concluded De Witt.
