The doors of the AAA School of Advertising have reopened, but it’s not business as usual. Classes are being conducted through virtual platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
In an opinion piece for The Media Yearbook, AAA CEO, Dr Ludi Koekemoer, said: “The need for education to employ unrivalled 21st century skills and values has become more important now to ensure that we are producing graduates that are critical thinkers, problem solvers with a flare of creativity and have an entrepreneurial mentality.”
In order to enable students to work seamlessly in a digital world, the AAA School issued every single first year and first time student of AAA with a tablet and students embarking in a creative direction were given Adobe licences.
“We have recognised that with the required change in how teaching and learning is now being conducted, there will be students that are affected. They may not have the proper hardware at home for them to fulfil their academic requirements,” the AAA School said in a press release.
“We are pleased to announce that for those students, AAA has delivered hardware to them on a loan basis to ensure that their schooling experience is not jeopardised and that they do not fall behind. Furthermore, our learning online platform (Moodle) has been zero rated, ensuring that students do not incur additional data costs when fulfilling their learning. AAA is also working very hard to ensure that deals can be secured with telecommunication businesses for more affordable data rates during this time to help our students.”
This is a tough time not only for educational institutions, but for corporate South Africa as well. “AAA will continue in our efforts of working closely with the advertising, marketing and related industries and different industry bodies,” it said. “We will continue to engage with potential employers to identify jobs and amazing companies for our students to go and work in. It is important that we contribute to the success of our industry for the future of our graduates.”
