PROGRESS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF

ICT IN EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

“I think it's fair to say that personal computers have

become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're

tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped

by their user.”

Bill Gates

INTRODUCTION

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) play a significant role in today’s education and society (Surty, 2010).

The past 15 years “in South Africa has been characterised by major transformation at all levels in the education system.” (Parker, 2006:59).

The introduction of ICTs in education “represents an important part of Government's strategy to improve the quality of teaching and learning” and deliver lifelong learning “across the education and training system.” (White Paper on e-Education, DoE, 2004:19)

CHALLENGES FOR EDUCATION Establish South Africa as an advanced

Information Society Access, cost effectiveness and

quality of education; and Integration of ICTs into the learning

and teaching process

E-EDUCATION GOAL

“Every South African learner in the General and

Further Education and Training bands will be ICT capable (that is, use ICT

confidently and creatively to help develop the skills and knowledge they need to achieve personal goals

and to be full participants in the global community) by

2013.” (Department of Education,

2004:17)

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES Infrastructure: To provide access to ICT infrastructure

for administrative and teaching and learning purposes Professional development: Educators, managers &

administrators knowledge, skills & support needed to integrate ICTs in teaching and learning

Content: Software, electronic content & online learning resources

Connectivity: To support anonline learning environment

Community Research & development:

Explore various innovation in ICTsin education

STATUS OF ICT INFRASTRUCTURE IN EDUCATION

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000Sc

hool

s

Schools 5929 1752 1880 5651 4243 1749 2115 421 1454

Administration 1232 941 1880 3200 918 1045 1428 281 1454

Teacher use 1232 793 1250 3200 918 1045 1428 60 1453

Teaching and Learning 1084 421 1250 100 303 508 1000 307 932

EC FS G KZN L M NW NC WC

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT/ TEACHER SUPPORT

Guidelines for Teacher Training and Professional Development in ICT (2007)

Teacher Laptop Initiative

CONTENT

The Thutong Education Portal provides over 14,000 digital content resources, has 10000 registered users and averages 80,000 hits a month

There are 84 learning spaces on the portal including a Support for Matric Space

CONNECTIVITY

Central to connectivity is the creation of a Virtual Private Network (VPN)for Education

The VPN would be connected to schools by available last mile connectivity

The VPN would provide an environment of educational resources (Thutong) and administrative purposes (SA-SAMS/LURITS/NEIMS)

ICT IN SCHOOLS

Computer literacy classes FET subjects IT and CAT Teaching & learning support

resource SA-SAMS, e.g. administration &

finance LURiTS

ADMINISTRATION

SA-SAMS

South African School Administration and Management System

Pat Bulling, Director of Education Management Systems

“will provide the standard for all school data and school administration systems at ground level” (Gibson, 2009:18)

LURITS

Learner Unit Record Information And Tracking System

Went live for first time in 2009 & still being rolled out across the country

Expected to be fully populated by October 2010

Already, about 4-million learner records captured (30% of the information input)

NEIMS

National Education Infrastructure Management System

Houses all the data about school infrastructure required for planning purposes, including e.g. number of classrooms, condition of buildings, water supply, type of electricity supply

PROVINCESGauteng (Online) 67% (1 493) of Gauteng’s 2 200 schools already have “access not only to computers,

but to the wider world as well through Internet access.” (Gibson, 2009:46). “The Gauteng Online project, which was first conceived back in 2002, … aims to provide every school in the province with a computer laboratory, giving every learner in the public schooling system access to the Internet and to e-mail.”

Free State 80% of FS’s 1550 schools linked to SA-SAMS Makes principals’ jobs easier, e.g. timetabling; puts their school on par with others Prov. dept. can watch learners’ & schools’ performance for trends & problems

Western Cape (Khanya) 1136 schools have been helped to use technology effectively Another 118 schools are in various stages of preparation for the next wave of

implementation A total of 43886 computers are used in Khanya schools (of these 27157 have been

funded by Khanya or its donor partners, and the balance of 16729 have been procured by the schools themselves)

24970 Educators are being empowered to use technology optimally for curriculum delivery

823550 learners are already reaping the benefits of the project

ICT IN THE CLASSROOM

ICT “is one of the key things that we are committed to”. “We need to tap into the potential of ICT to maximise the work we are doing in education.” (Gibson, 2009:40)

Proof of Concept Aims to demonstrate that it is possible to implement the ICT in

Education initiative 1 unit of implementation per province Unit of implementation = geographically adjacent

district/circuit(s) 135 – 200 schools per unit of implementation Carried out over a 3 year period, including planning &

implementation stages All provinces involved, most in early planning stage; NW starting

to implement

ICT RESOURCE CENTRES IN SUPPORT OF THE POC

ICT RESOURCE CENTRES IN POC DISTRICTS

The ICT Resource Centre in the Mpumalanga province was launched on 1 June 2010

The ICT Resource Centre in the North West Province will be launched in October 2010

High mobile telephony penetration rates in Africa

Majority of population are Youth

Emergence of undersea cables in Sub-Saharan Africa (Seacom, West Africa Cable System (WACS), and the EASSy Cable)

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENTMOBILE TECHNOLOGY USAGE

49.1

20.8

27.4

16.9

11.8

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

Africa Americas Asia Europe Oceania

Percentage

Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY USAGE

Innovative application of mobile telephony to support teaching and learning

Focusing mainly on Mathematics

Promote sharing, collaboration, and exchange of learning resources and content

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

Riitta Vänskä (Nokia) / Lucky Masilela (NSN) 10.09.20081

Technology Architecture

Thutong

Interface developed on Moodle platform

To be developed by DoE

Developed by WebAlt

MXIT Technology used to deliver content(closed environment)

Curriculum developed for Gr 10 Mathematics

To be developed by Mindset

Between 14:00 – 20:00 on Mondays to Thursdays learners can get online

tutorial support from tutors

Content

hosting

Le

arn

ing

ma

na

ge

me

nt syste

m

Online

support

Delivery

Channel

THANK YOU

Mr. Edward MosuweActing Deputy Director-General Department of Basic Education

Tel: +27 (0) 12 357 4087 e-mail: mosuwe.e@dbe.gov.za

ICTs are not about the

hardware…

….or the software…

but about the WARM-ware

Batho Pele! (People first)