The group, led by the Director of Student Placement and Welfare, Bosele Radipotsane, studied the use of Oracle Discoverer over a three-day course last week. Oracle Discoverer is an ad-hoc query and report writing tool that will give the participants access to essential data faster and more easily than before.

The Department of Student Placement and Welfare (DSP&W) within MoE is mandated with offering scholarships to deserving Batswana students.

The SLMS was originally developed by RPC Data for the government in 2001, and was designed to support the administration of student loans, offered under the new Grant/Loan Scheme established in April 1995 mainly for Tertiary Education.

The loan portion of the scholarships is recoverable as soon as the beneficiary becomes employed. Executive director and general manager Mompati Nwako had this to say, "This course for DSP&W staff follows closely on one provided by RPC Data covering Oracle Financials Super User Training to officials from the Government of Uganda's Ministry of Finance that ran from August 8 to September 9, 2006. There is clearly confidence in the market place in our ability to offer a quality product. One must also note that as an OAEP, RPC Data must ensure our instructors are trained at the levels required to provide any of the training courses offered through Oracle University."

RPC Data is an award winning Oracle Approved Education Provider (OAEP), one of a select group of companies invited by Oracle to participate in their programme to give easier access to education and course materials on Oracle solutions. In March of 2006, RPC Data was awarded the "Education Partner of the Year" at a conference held by the Oracle University in Cairo. RPC Data won the prize out of the 26 OAEP companies throughout Africa that are authorised to provide training using the official Oracle courseware.