Microsoft will provide a range of its software to all SA`s schools, free of charge, for the next three years.
However, Department of Education director-general Duncan Hindle concedes that not everyone will be able to use the software, as only 9 000 schools have fully-equipped computer laboratories where PCs can be accessed for both teaching and learning.
Microsoft is partnering with the department to supply Microsoft Office 2007, Vista Business, Visual Studio Pro, Visio Pro, Exchange Server, SQL Server, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopaedia to all the schools in the country.
Hindle points out that while only 9 000 schools will be able to use the products in laboratories, other schools will be able to use it on individual PCs or for administrative purposes.
"In the next five years, we want all school leavers to be computer literate," he says.
The Microsoft donation is worth R750 million over the course of the three years and is the second of its kind for the software company.
According to Chris Roberts, industry director for the public sector within Microsoft Middle East and Africa, even though not all schools will benefit immediately, it speaks to a prospective partnership.
"The partnership represents where we are going in the future - it is a long-term partnership," he says. "The software is available to all 26 000 schools."
Even though government has made a commitment to open source software, Trudie van Wyk, national director of curriculum innovation, says the strategy towards open standards and open content development is a "multi-pronged" one.
"We have a migration strategy in place, but at this stage there is no choice [but to use proprietary software]," she says. "Government is committed to providing cost-effective and free software to schools."
However, Hindle acknowledges teachers may not know how to use the software given to them.
"It is a problem we are tackling," he says. "We are, however, very confident that new teachers entering the system will be fully ICT capable."
Reza Bardien, academic programme manager for the public sector at Microsoft SA, says that even when teachers are taught to use an application, they don`t necessarily know how to integrate it into their teaching.
"For this reason, there is a strong focus on outcomes," he says, when it comes to teacher education, both on the part of the department and Microsoft.
Finally, Hindle says it has been accepted by government that a PC that is not connected to the Internet is like a cellphone that has no network coverage - "a nice toy", but otherwise not very useful.
"Some 50% of the cost of implementation [of ICT in schools] is connectivity, and the costs are very high," he says. "It is something we will be working on."
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