Schools are not receiving the 50% Internet connectivity discount they are entitled to because the Department of Education (DOE) is still compiling a register of its needs, a spokesman says.
Department of Education spokesman Tommy Makhode says: "While it is a priority for us, we are still compiling a register of needs that includes cheaper Internet connectivity for schools."
In September last year, communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced that schools were entitled to a 50% reduction in their Internet fees. This was gazetted a month later as part of the overall telecommunications liberalisation announcement. This discount came into effect on 1 January.
However, two months later, very few of the country`s estimated 24 000 schools have seen the benefit of this discount and they are not likely to soon as the DOE has not made any plans to allow schools to fast track the procedure to register with Telkom.
"No, there are no formal plans to allow schools to register directly with Telkom," Makhode says.
Telkom spokesman Hans Van De Groenendaal says some schools are receiving the discount, but he could not say how many.
"Our main problem is that we need to reconcile the school telephone numbers are legitimate, because some school phone numbers are not in their names, rather they are in the names of their principals or companies that sponsor them," he says.
Impact example
An example of the impact the discount could have on a school`s budget is Cape Town`s Maitland High School, whose principal William Jantjies says it could save around R18 000 per year, or about five percent of the R300 000 it receives in school fees.
"This school caters for the poorest of the poor. Most of our learners come from the black and poverty stricken townships of Guguletu and Khayalitsha and so a saving like that can go a long way," he says.
Earlier this week minister of education Naledi Pandor opened the WIC van der Westhuizen computer centre at the Maitland High School and said the new e-rate - the cost of the Internet connection - "would be gazetted soon."
The Maitland High School`s computer centre has three rooms. The Shuttleworth Foundation helped set up two of the rooms and the third was funded through the Western Cape Education Department`s Khanya e-schools project.
Jantjies says part of the school`s Internet connectivity costs are being covered by a sponsorship by retail chain Pick 'n Pay and some of the teachers were involved in setting up the infrastructure including the local area network.
"We received fantastic co-operation from the Khanya people who have been very supportive of the implementation," Jantjies says.
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