3 uwc e-skills unit

E-Centres for Social Inclusion SALGA Workshop

19 March 2013

WC Co-Lab @ university of the western capee-skills institute knowledge production and coordination hub

WC hub @ university of the western cape Agenda

• Background

• Mandate and operating model of the e‐Skills Institute

• Focus of the WC Co‐Lab

• E‐Centres for e‐Inclusion

• Objective• Achievement thus far• Proposed plan for 2013• Building the eco‐system

WC hub @ university of the western cape Background: e-SI

Where did it all start?

South Africa realised that there is a serious shortfall with respect to the ICT‐related skills. To address this shortfall, the e‐Skills Institute (e‐SI) has been established to drive the e‐skills agenda. This has been done in response to the recommendations of the Presidential International Advisory Council (PIAC) on the Information Society and Development (ISAD) and is an initiative of the National Department of Communications (DoC).

To facilitate the implementation of the e‐skills agenda, the e‐SI has established e‐skills knowledge production and coordination CoLabs in six provinces located at Higher Education Institutions. Each of the CoLabs has been tasked to drive the e‐skills agenda in the specific Province, by focusing on a particular thematic area and by involving and collaborating with all the relevant role players in the Province.

WC hub @ university of the western cape Background: e-SI

What is the role of the e-SI?

As a national catalyst, change agent and facilitator, the e‐SI aims to help:

• Grow the human resource e‐skills base for South Africa• Embed technology into people’s lives• Provide the base for increasing equitable prosperity in South African society• Position South Africa to increase its global competitiveness

How will the e-SI achieve its aims?

The e‐SI will achieve its objectives through:

• Teaching and learning initiatives• Research and innovation• Multi‐stakeholder participation (and engagement) • Advocacy

WC hub @ university of the western cape Definitionss

e-Inclusion: “(e-Inclusion is) all efforts by the public and private sector, civil society and the technology community devoted to developing and using ISTs to address issues of societal exclusion in any dimension; creating new opportunities for inclusive empower-ment and development through ISTs, and preventing new IST-induced gaps from emerging.” (Bianchi et al., 2006, p. 1) [IST = information society technologies]

e-Skills: “…the ability to use and develop ICTs within the context of an emerging South African Information Society and global Knowledge Economy, and associated compe-tencies that enable individuals to actively participate in a world in which ICT is a requirement for advancement in government, business, education and society in general” (TISI, 2010, p. 70).

WC hub @ university of the western cape Quote

Sidebar: Foundation skills are defined here as problem solving in technology‐rich environments(the ability to use technology to solve problems and accomplish complex tasks); literacy (theability to understand and use information from written texts in a variety of contexts to achievegoals and further develop knowledge); numeracy (the ability to use, apply, interpret andcommunicate mathematical information and ideas; and reading components (including wordrecognition, decoding skills, vocabulary knowledge and fluency).

2012 OECD Report: Better Skills. Better Jobs. Better Lives. The OECD Skills Strategy, Executive Summary

WC hub @ university of the western cape Background: Current state

The Word Economic Forum (WEF) global e‐readiness 2012 rankings show that South Africa has dropped from 47th (2007) to 72nd place (2012).

It is a self‐evident that whatever effort South Africa has applied thus far has not prepared its society for a socio‐economic reality dominated by new forms of ICT applications powerful mobile ICT devices.

The WEF global e‐readiness report identifies lack of appropriate skills as a major contributor to this slide.

This is not because South Africa has not applied genuine effort but because other nations have applied a greater coordinated national effort and put the matter at the centre of national priorities in dealing with inequity

WC hub @ university of the western cape Focus of the WC CoLab

E-Inclusion & Social

Innovation

Smart Centres for e-Inclusion

Social innovation leveraging off mobile technology

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Research

Public Forums: Thought Leaders

WC hub @ university of the western cape E-Centres for e-Inclusion

• The Western Cape Provincial Government is in the process of implementing its broadband strategy. The provision of at least one broadband access per ward forms a key element of the strategy to work towards e‐ inclusion of communities.

• In support of the Broadband strategy and e‐Inclusion of communities, the Cape Access program of the Province, is focused on the establishment of well‐functioning e‐Centres in communities as ICTs access points but also as the starting point of e‐skills development initiatives.

• For the past 2 years the Western Cape CoLab partnered with the Province to equip e‐Centre managers with the necessary skills to manage the centre as a “source” for e‐skilling the community.

WC hub @ university of the western cape E-Centres


Achievements

• Development of e‐Centre management training module

• Piloted, adjusted and since 2011 trained a total of 78 e‐Centre managers across the Province

• Based on statistics: 75 000 visitors over a 2‐year period

WC hub @ university of the western cape MTM4Witz Centre, Ceres

WC hub @ university of the western cape George -Thusong Service Centre

WC hub @ university of the western cape E-Centres:

HOWEVER

WC hub @ university of the western cape E-Centres – WCG Challenges

While the WCG is forging ahead with its e‐government strategy implementation, we are aware of the need to:

– Understand those factors that inhibits large scale adoption of e‐services

– Ensure that the pace of growing the portfolio of e‐services does not outstrip the pace of e‐skills development

– Work towards ensuring that e‐skills development amongst WCG employees becomes a priority

– Work towards an e‐skills minimum standard for employees

– Grow the Cape Access Programme with a key focus on youth

– Strengthen the partnerships we have forged over the past two years.


• We are currently faced with the reality that initiatives aimed at e‐skilling communities (reaching the masses) need to be escalated to contribute to the delivery of an e‐literate society by 2030 and the Millennium Development Goals.

• The life‐enriching advantages of ICTs (incl broadband connectivity) and the delivery of government e‐services and all e‐services (for that matter) are directly dependent on the e‐literacy levels of citizens and their level of awareness of the potential benefits of ICTs.

• E‐Centres have a pertinent role to play in this e‐skilling of communities (See Watson, 2012) and it is therefore imperative that priority be given to expanding and improving the reach and/or influence of these centres as open spaces for learning, innovation and knowledge production.

From e‐Centre to Smart Centre

WC hub @ university of the western cape Escalating eSkills interventions

ICT is not a harmless technology

Internet (or rather lack of access and skills) has the potential to irrevocably alienate those “vulnerable” citizens that are desperately depended on and most in need of

government services (e‐services).

‐ thus creating an even worse situation of a digital divide.

WC hub @ university of the western cape From e-Centre to Smart Centre

WC hub @ university of the western cape eCentres for Inclusion

Teaching and Learning:

Formal: eCentre management cont. (WC, other Co‐Labs)eCentre management advanced (support)

Articulation: integrate with community development (?)

Pilot Project Objectives: Quantity and Quality

• Explore the integration of e‐literacy and e‐centre management courses with teaching and learning initiatives aimed at rural and community development (LED, CDW etc.)

• Establish a model/framework for multi‐stakeholder partnerships aimed at embedding e‐centres in a community eco‐system

• Develop, implement and adjust a model to accelerate and expand the reach of centres in communities

• Understand the requirements of establishing the eCentres as nodes for learning and provision of eServices

WC hub @ university of the western cape S-Centre Manager Project: Model

Smart Centre:SEAD

First/only structured intake.• Training in critical e-skills• Strategy to reach vulnerable groups• Target setting - incentives

Possible partners:• NGO’s; NPO’s, RD• Focus on vulnerable groups

especially youth – NEET’s

Infrastructure Support(all devices)Income generating activities –entrepreneurs?

TouchpointsHelp, coachingDevelop/collate community specific materialGrow the Infobank/portal

Principles of the model

Social Entrepreneur Advocate

WC hub @ university of the western cape What is required?

• Real people to collaborate as partners

• Rally around a shared goal

• Appetite for ‘new thinking”

WC hub @ university of the western cape Possibilities: Mobility

MXit, home-grown African social networking

MXit, a South African social network, has become the premier social network in its home country and has expanded to reach more than 30 million users across Africa and beyond with 40,000 new users joining every day. Overall, MXit has 50 million users registered in more than 120 countries. In the first half of 2011, MXit registered 24 million users just in Sub‐Saharan Africa compared to less than 19 million for Facebook, making MXit the biggest social media network in Sub‐Saharan Africa.

Mxit has 9, 3 million active users in South African, the vast majority 15 – 25 years of age.

Success has been enhanced by the high level of activity of its users compared to other social networks, with an average MXit user spending 45 hours per month on the site.

Source: www.mxit.com and newspaper reports.

WC hub @ university of the western cape Possibilities: Mobility

FunDza on Mxit: Stellenbosch grown mobile reading

The publisher Cover2Cover founded the FunDza Literacy Trust to take forward its social objectives, which is to get young South Africans reading and through this to boost literacy levels, particularly among low‐income teens and young adults.

FunDza thus focuses on sparking and sustaining a reading culture by creating a demand for reading and learning, increasing access to content, leveraging mobile technology, encouraging readers to write and prompting viral growth.

It has three focus areas namely to popularise reading, to grow the community of readers and to develop young writers. At the moment FunDza has 360 000 active users, 9 500 registered users, 1 800 unique visitors/month and 4 400 registrants. On a daily basis between 12 000 and 300 000 individual pages are viewed and between 4 000 and 40000 visitors read on the Mxit portal

http://prezi.com/4j3r7n51d3j4/e‐skills‐colloquium/?rc=ref‐4070390&kw=view‐4j3r7n51d3j4


Questions?


Roderick Lim Banda

Huge frustration from business because of inability to unlock opportunities

WC hub @ university of the western cape

in the e-Skills Institute - multi-stakeholder collaboration

partners

3 uwc e-skills unit

Documents