National Digital E-Book / E-Content Strategy

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) Inputs and Contribution to a National Digital E-Book / E-Content Strategy, released in February this year, has been under discussion in many arenas as the local publishing and bookselling industry tries to understand how it will affect them in future business dealings with the department. Jessica Faircliff discusses the strategy in detail.

“There is a need for centralized digital content control and development to ensure that high quality and relevant digital content resources are available free of charge via offline and online delivery methods using any digital device,” states the introduction to the paper. It looks briefly at rights management standards and resources. It asks for interoperability of digital content standards including accessibility from different locations and multiple platforms, durability of technology, scalability and flexibility. All of which, would obviously be ideal. It is the actual probability, which comes into question. Technology development moves so fast that durability will have to include some sort of consistent development plan and team. With regards to digital content resource development, the paper is in close alignment with the Curriculum Assessment Policy Standards (CAPS) as well as the centralised procurement model. Mr Brian Schreuder, Deputy Director General: Curriculum and Assessment of the Western Cape DoE outlined the department’s future plans at a recent meeting.

The plan is to develop an “E-Catalogue, which will direct users to the URL of the owner of the resource,” a strategy that fits in tightly with the centralised procurement model and cuts out booksellers completely. There will, however, be space for a digital repository, which will be organised per category, per subject, per grade and which will be easily accessible over and above the approved digital textbooks. This offers publishers room to negotiate providing extra content that does not fit in with CAPS. The most logical and first priority for the department is infrastructure. The Thutong Portal has not been the success it was hoped and the DBE understands the need for a more robust solution and hopes to have broadband connections in all schools by 2016 with 349 free wi-fi hotspots.

The DBE, in partnership with the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS) are currently in the process of developing a new dedicated and robust DBE Cloud solution and Telkom is the designated service provider. Telkom’s brief is simple: it is to provide the DBE with a solution that will offer storage, management and processing of content; access to content by learners, teachers and other stakeholders via different devices; ability to track and monitor content usage and data analysis; integration of resources into virtual learning platforms; ability to provide offline content or content on demand; storage space; ability to host software applications for download; and a Learning Management System (LMS).

How far along is the testing, development and distribution of digital content in South Africa at this point in time? “An address by the Gauteng MEC for Education at the Digital Book Summit arranged by the Department of Arts and Culture and the SA Book Development Council in Pretoria was particularly interesting for booksellers,” reports the SA Booksellers Secretary Peter Adams. Gauteng acquired 88 000 tablets and launched a pilot project at eight schools at the beginning of the academic school year, issuing 11 000 tablets. The pilot is called The Smart Schools Paperless Education Project. A budget of R17bn has been set aside for this project, R600m has already been spent on training staff to use the devices. It was anticipated to complete the rollout to all Gauteng township and rural schools by the end of the 2017/18 financial year.

All High School children (Grades 8 – 12) were to be provided with a tablet and Grade 7 pupils were to be trained on how to use the devices. Government schools who achieve a 95 – 100% matric pass rate in 2015 would have stood first in line for the next stage of the pilot. “Mr Panyaza Lesufi has given eight Gauteng schools tablets and insisted on a radical change in teaching methods in this province. A high level teacher delivers the lesson, which is sent through the internet to classes in all eight schools. Afterward the online lesson the teachers in each classroom discuss what has been seen. A test can be downloaded instantaneously for the students to complete on their tablets, and the results can be correlated in time for discussion of the problem areas on the following day. What an improvement on the old system where a test was often only marked and returned to the students a week later.

“Mr Lesufi is no friend of the blackboard. He is too aware of the time wasted as teachers write and students wait. So, when teachers failed to arrive at his training sessions to show them how to use the new technology, he removed the blackboards from the classrooms. That solved that problem!” However in a disappointing turn of event, reports in mid May stated that the Gauteng Department of Education was withdrawing the tablets from the pilot schools due to a rise in the number of burglaries. Lesufi told SABC News that he has written to the principals of schools. “There’ve been a series of burglaries to our schools to steal the tablets that we’ve given to schools. I don’t want to jeopardise the mid-year examinations because when these people break into our schools, even if they’re looking for these tablets, they end up taking other things.”

The number of e-book providers in South Africa is currently limited to a handful including ITsi (IT School) which is backed by Capitec; MIB Technology; ZA Books; On The Dot; and Snapplify, who are possibly the most pro-active in the market at the moment and who actively work with booksellers and currently have 250 Publishers on board internationally.

What can we surmise from all of the above? As we know the Digital market in South Africa is young and there is much room for development and business growth, which must, by necessity, be directed by the government. “A reading of the strategy shows that it is a comprehensive and robust one. Not much can be faulted with the objectives of creating the necessary infrastructure and resource readiness to enable our educational system to update itself with the times and provide more relevant transitions for students to the world of work,” comments John Jacobs, who is in charge of New Business Development at Forge Education. And whilst the general feeling is one of positive support for such a broad and well-researched approach, there are some that might throw a word of caution to the department, regarding their top down strategy.

“The concomitant over centralization is negative for many stakeholders in the sector. Not only does this not bode well for the ongoing existence of the bookseller in its current format due to the pressures of efficiencies related to centralisation and consequent disintermediation, but the objectives of moving to limited variety and government repositories of all of the prescribed digital content are threatening moves for the publisher,” comments John.

“The irony is that relationships held by the bookseller in the value chain could be productively leveraged off if time and will allowed this inclusive approach. Further, as the pace of knowledge development continues to accelerate, more publishers and more variety are required which is only possible in a more competitive, not over-centralised environment.”