More and more South Africans are downloading e-books and steering away from purchasing physical books.
This is according to online retailer kalahari.com, which claims that it sold over 3 000 e-readers during the festive season, and experienced a 100% increase in the sale of e-books for the same period.
IT experts and teachers concur that it makes sense to have pupils carry one e-reading device, which contains all of the latest content for the current curriculum, rather than a heavy pack of books that need to be the right ones for that day's timetable.
“South Africans' appetite and aptitude for e-content is growing. In this information age, there is no reason why this could not extend to the education sector to increase access to content, aid learning in the classroom and also reduce the cost of learning materials over time,” says Gary Novitzkas, CEO of kalahari.com.
Contrary to claims that top Johannesburg school Kingsmead College has already started making use of the digital textbooks, the institution's head of IT senior school, Lora Foot, confirms it will in fact commence the programme in July this year.
“We are not using e-textbooks as yet. We are still investigating which textbooks that we use are in e-format,” says Foot. “Apple is investigating this for us at the moment. Pupils and parents are looking forward to this, as they promise to be a cheaper option, and it will be possible to have all your textbooks on one device so it will be lighter to carry.”
Foot says she is hoping that e-books will replace textbooks in the future, as they will be cheaper and lighter, as well as being more likely to be up to date. She explains that e-books will give the student the ability to take notes and highlight information on the device.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the future of textbooks is in e-books. “The printed textbook is dead. It just doesn't know it yet. It does, however, require a re-education for all teachers on how to best leverage the electronic medium, as opposed to a paper-based medium. In the long-term, it will do away with great expense for schools and parents, and great inconvenience for the student.”
On the other hand, he notes that while it's not necessary to replace textbooks with e-books, in many circumstances, it would be the ideal solution to the shortage of textbooks.
Concluding, Schofield points out that for the foreseeable future, SA will continue to see the disparity between the facilities, technologies and teachers at the “top” schools and those in use at average and below-average institutions.
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