Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri should be hanging her head in shame. She owes an unconditional apology to the school children of this country for neglecting their education and placing their future in jeopardy.
She should also apologise for mismanaging policy and for implementing it so badly that it has stunted overall economic growth, wasted taxpayers' monies and left the country trailing its peers in an increasingly competitive global economy.
Time and again, the minister has raised expectations and then dashed them, and the whole e-rate saga is the worst of all the instances, because it is not allowing for the future of this country to be built on a sustainable basis.
Fundamental right
Internet connectivity at schools should be treated as a fundamental right. In other words, it should be accorded the same urgency or status as the right schools have to receive water, electricity and buildings. So decreeing that schools are entitled to a 50% discount on their connectivity rates sounds grand when, in reality, it has been nothing but an absolute sham.
The issue of school connectivity should have been given the same urgency and status as the national drive to curb the HIV/Aids epidemic.
Sense of urgency
Her decree, first made in the infamous "Liberalisation Announcement" of September 2004, was designed to make the minister look good ahead of the Presidential International Advisory Council on Information Society and Development meeting. That council was about to take a closer look at just what SA had done to lay the foundation for developing itself into a society that is ready to become part of the knowledge economy.
The announcement would also prove that Matsepe-Casaburri had applied her mind to the various problems that were inhibiting the transformation of this country to prepare itself for the evolution of a knowledge economy. And the decree on the e-rate was supposed to encourage the beginning of this transformation, by encouraging and making it cheap for schools to connect to the Internet.
However, the minister did not apply her mind to the implications of her statement, and it is simply this - "50% of what?"
Did it mean that the equipment used by the schools to connect would be discounted by 50%? Did it mean that upstream and downstream connectivity would be discounted, or did it mean that all companies supplying connectivity, up and down the value chain, had to implement the discount, or did it only apply to certain companies, such as Internet service providers?
She never stopped to think that imposing such an entitlement is possibly just another form of taxation on a sector that is already heavily taxed through direct and indirect methods.
She never stopped to think that maybe this is a case where the R860 million lying dormant in the Universal Service and Access Fund could be used.
And she never stopped to think that many companies that were already giving schools free e-mail and connectivity services were now being forced to indicate that they were charging at least a nominal rate in order to show they were giving a 50% rate cut.
Scrap heap
Communications director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole said she and the minister are now advocating a zero-rating, as at least 60% of public schools cannot even afford the original 50% fee. As if this will solve the problem.
Once again, the question is, "zero percent of what?" and, again, who will carry the ultimate cost?
In my mind, the whole issue of school connectivity should have been given the same urgency and status as the national drive to curb the HIV/Aids epidemic, because connectivity is about building a sustainable future for the country. Children should be able to learn from an early age the necessary ICT skills they need to prosper in the future.
No, our minister did not apply her mind to the school e-rate issue and so has failed the children of this country.
She missed a golden opportunity to create an enduring legacy, but instead will be consigned to the scrap heap of history.
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