A revised ICT-implementation strategy, that was to be presented to the Committee of Heads of Education Departments (HEDCOM) yesterday, does not actually exist.
Instead, a draft plan was "briefly discussed" at a HEDCOM meeting yesterday and is still "a work in progress". This is according to DA shadow minister of education Annette Lovemore.
"I am very taken aback actually," says Lovemore. "We were led to believe by the Department of Education that a revised ICT-implementation plan will be presented to HEDCOM, when in fact there isn't a document."
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) confirmed at a portfolio committee meeting last week that its goal - of every basic and higher education learner being ICT-capable by 2013, which was first mentioned in the White Paper of 2004 - has not been achieved.
According to the committee report, the department said provinces gave unequal funding to support e-learning and few schools made computers available for teaching and learning. It also mentioned lack of a dedicated budget, lack of provincial plans, lack of competent personnel, limited coverage, the high cost of connectivity, and reluctance of network operators to offer e-rates as challenges that contributed to its failure to meet its goal.
The DBE also conceded it had not done as well as it should have in the library and information services (LIS) area. The lowest-achieving provinces for LIS are Eastern Cape and Limpopo, with 47% of schools not fulfilling the minimum standards for LIS and 51% doing so. The department now plans to set up 1 006 centralised libraries and 3 000 classroom libraries over the next three years.
Dinaledi impact
Meanwhile, Dinaledi schools are also suffering due to the lack of a working ICT-implementation strategy. The committee report shows that 223 of the 500 Dinaledi schools in the country are still without connectivity.
It was put to the committee that the reason "was probably that there are no resources to sustain the connectivity". In most cases, the private sector sponsored connectivity for a limited period of time, but if this was withdrawn the schools could not sustain it, said Phil Mnisi, DBE director for e-education. The DBE is in discussion with the Department of Communications in the hope of including the 223 Dinaledi schools in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Legacy project.
The Dinaledi schools came under fire last week when education analyst Graeme Bloch said the schools are "clearly not working" and are not producing the results they should. Director of Dinaledi David Silman agrees with the statement and says changes need to be made as to how the programme is managed.
"[We have to ensure] that the funding is used to best effect. I can say that this has obviously not happened, for a number of reasons. I can see now, after a full year in the Dinaledi hot seat, that getting very good value for money return in terms of improved academic results can only happen if we make some changes to how the programme is managed," says Silman.
"Increased scrutiny through on-site provincial monitoring at schools and head offices, and closer control on the quality of services offered and provided, must have a positive effect on the impact of the programme."
Lovemore says she has written to education minister Angie Motshekga to ask why a revised e-education implementation plan has not been developed and whether an investigation into the reasons for the delay in implementation of e-education has been carried out.
The DBE did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
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