Intel packages laptop deal for DOE

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 08 Apr 2009

The national Department of Education (DOE) is pushing ahead with a programme to subsidise laptops for more than 400 000 teachers around the country.

The initiative will see the state contribute R130 per month, over a period of five years, to each teacher to purchase a notebook.

DOE spokesman Lunga Ngqengelele says the department is engaged in a project to provide every teacher in the country with a laptop.

Intel Sub-Saharan Africa corporate affairs director Parthy Chetty says the programme will be fully voluntary in that teachers can choose not to receive the allowance to purchase notebooks.

The company has been playing a consultative role in the programme. It has been tasked by the DOE to provide an end-to-end solution in working out the specs of the notebooks, as well as providing training for teachers.

“We approached government because we were vendor-neutral and we presented some research on the teacher laptop programme,” says Chetty.

Loan agreements

Chetty adds that the onus is now on government to make the announcements on the project and to collaborate with the relevant stakeholders. One of the main challenges he points to is the financing of the notebooks, expected to be an allowance of R130 every month for five years per teacher. This would necessitate a loan agreement with a bank.

“We have been talking to several banks around the country to work out a buying loan scheme for the teachers,” says Chetty. “Absa has come aboard and says that if government is willing to guarantee the subsidies for the laptops, then it will provide access to loans to purchase notebooks.”

The chipmaker adds that government has already sent out expressions of interest to various vendors in SA. It has specified three different types of laptops, ranging from high-end notebooks to lower-end ones, which it would like to subsidise for teachers.

“It will all depend on the computer literacy level of the teacher concerned. If that person is an entry-level computer user, then we suggest they purchase an entry-level notebook and so on,” explains Chetty.

DOE snubs Sadtu

Last year, the DOE refused to endorse a teacher laptop deal the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) penned with ICT distributer Rectron and financing house Bayport.

The deal would have seen the department subsidise Asus EEE laptops, which Sadtu had hoped to purchase for its members. The union could not be reached despite repeated calls.

DOE director-general Duncan Hindle had been quoted as saying it was “regrettable the union did not consult with the DOE before entering into that agreement” as the department was already in the advanced stages of its own subsidised teacher laptop deal.

Sadtu's deal with Rectron had been four years in the making and the union says it felt it did not have to consult with the DOE because the department did not see eye-to-eye with it on issues such as ICT.