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Vodacom connects 5 000 Eastern Cape schools

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 24 Apr 2017
Vuyani Jarana, chief officer at Vodacom Business.
Vuyani Jarana, chief officer at Vodacom Business.

Vodacom has partnered with the Eastern Cape Department of Education to supply a school management solution that aims to assist with the administration of 5 000 schools in the province.

The mobile operator says it has been awarded the contract to implement the cloud-based Vodacom school management platform, which will enable the Eastern Cape Department of Education to use technology to better manage 5 000 sparsely distributed and remote schools in the province.

It integrates with the South African school administration management solution, enabling the department to communicate with each school, and collect information about the various activities in each school, such as time and attendance, pupil grade tracking and asset management, to improve education outcomes through improved visibility.

Vuyani Jarana, chief officer at Vodacom Business, says: "Notwithstanding government's efforts to invest in public schooling infrastructure, SA still has a huge backlog in terms of education infrastructure.

"The lack of libraries and science laboratories tops the list of needs, alongside the lack of classrooms. Given this set of circumstances, it is hard to imagine how SA could improve education without the use of ICT technologies.

"Digitising education presents new possibilities as paper-based libraries become digital and physical science experiments are converted into repeatable video formats. This improves student subject matter comprehension and memory recall of learning experiences. We congratulate the Eastern Cape Department of Education for taking this much-needed step."

The platform provides an interface which allows principals and the Eastern Cape Department of Education to also monitor feeding programmes and all daily school administrative data. The Gauteng Department of Education has used the solution for over six years and the Eastern Cape is the third province to adopt the solution after Gauteng and Free State, adds Jarana.

Eastern Cape Department of Education superintendent general Themba Kojana says: "Our partnership with Vodacom will enable the Eastern Cape Department of Education to improve our school management systems across the province.

"This technology will allow us to receive consistent and accurate data from all our schools to assist us in ongoing decision-making, including the appropriate allocation of departmental resources. This is critical for us as we strengthen our systems and implement a new service delivery model that completely overhauls our operational posture."

Teachers will also have access to curriculum-approved content through the solution, including Vodacom's zero-rated e-school platform, which will improve teaching and learning in the schools, adds Vodacom. In addition, schools will receive devices such as laptops and tablets secured through the Vodacom secure device management solution, ensuring critical content is protected from cyber security crimes at all times.

Tim Genders, chief operating officer of Tobetsa, the platform provider for Project Isizwe, says in addition to Internet access providing a resource for learners, it is also a crucial tool for educators in lesson preparation and enabling access to many valuable digital resources.

"Integrated learning management software systems are on the increase in educational institutions. These help to enhance administration, and put otherwise tedious and expensive resources and processes in place to make teaching and learning more efficient: online resources, portfolios of work, self-marking assessments, record-keeping, etc. These can be very helpful in schools, but the necessary training and support needs to be in place in order to empower educators to make effective use of them.

"Online tools and resources are able to support learning and e-learning in many ways. More and more the trends are towards personalised and differentiated learning - providing a learning experience that caters for the unique educational and developmental needs of the individual learner. Online virtual reality experiences are also enhancing teaching and learning, and there is still enormous value in using the Internet for research purposes, extending an individual's own experience of the world, and using tools that help learners practise and improve the skills they are mastering at grade level," concludes Genders.

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