BMW donates educational display cars

"BMW's donation of the educational cars to our science centres will go a long way towards enhancing the DST's efforts in bringing science and technology closer to our youth and getting the public to appreciate the value of science, engineering and technology," said Minister Hanekom in his address.

The handover of the first educational display car to the Cape Town Science Centre coincided with the tabling of the DST's 2013/14 budget. The remaining four BMW 3 Series educational display cars will be handed over in the coming months to science centres in four other provinces.

Putting 'scrap' to good use

The BMW 3 Series educational display cars were built in the pre-production stage of the new BMW 3 Series at Plant Rosslyn, Pretoria in early 2012. As pre-production vehicles, they are not allowed to be registered and would have been scrapped. However, BMW have put these assets to better use. A similar educational car was donated to and has been on display at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Johannesburg.

"In addition to identifying homes for these educational cars, BMW South Africa as a highly technical company, has played a meaningful role in the development of maths and science competency in under-privileged schools for the past 20 years," says Guy Kilfoil, general manager of communications and public affairs for BMW South Africa.

"Through our Maths, Science and Technology Excellence (MST) Project we have been able to deploy mobile laboratories, known as BMW Centres of Excellence, to 42 participating schools that serve historically disadvantaged communities. As a result, more than 40,000 learners and 148 teachers are direct beneficiaries of this Project, which delivers maths and science pass rates around 20% higher than the national average," says Kilfoil.

"The donation of the BMW 3 Series educational cars was a natural extension to our commitment in this space in terms of reducing the knowledge gap in the critical areas of maths, science and technology," says Kilfoil. "Automobile technology also makes maths and science tangible and competency in these subjects aspirational."

Development programmes

From discussions held with BMW, it became apparent that there was a strong synergy between BMW's MST Excellence Project and the DST's Youth into Science Programme as well as the general public science engagement programme.

The DST has an established youth development programme which, among other approaches, enhances youth's access to, and stimulates learners' interest in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and innovation (STEMI).

"Our approach is to target all the learners, parents and other influential sections of the population. Learners are exposed to exciting and fun STEMI activities. Existing initiatives led and supported by the DST include the annual National Science Week, science festivals as well as awareness and engagement activities driven by science centres," added Hanekom.