Education in South Africa

Development in and access to ICT hardware and software is expensive. Prohibitively so for the majority of the population. As a result, students turn to free resources as and when opportunity allows.

This situation presents a particular conundrum to the local education publishers who need to service learners from two very different sides of the spectrum as well as all those in the middle. The needs of a private school in the Western Cape for example are very different to those of a small rural community school in KwaZulu-Natal.

Pearson Education, the world’s largest education company, with a presence in over 70 countries, states on its website that “South Africa has its own unique challenges and educational requirements, and by playing an active part in the country’s education system, we understand this well.”

The company has been much in the news lately with the head office in the U.S. announcing a second major restructure involving 4000 job cuts, warehouse closures and back office systems overhauls. It will cost the company £320m in the next year but lead to savings of £350m by 2017.

Speculation has been rife about the influence of ICT in the prolonged downturn of its key U.S. businesses. John Fallon, Chief Executive of the company, however rejected suggestions that Pearson was threatened by the increasing role of digital technology in teaching and testing.

A recent panel discussion hosted by the Brazilian Chamber of Books highlighted the different perspectives and expectations that publishers, teachers, and students each have for use of the digital book in the classroom. Similarly to South Africa, the use of digital resources is restricted to a small number of schools in Brazil.

The panelists made the following observations:

• Publisher: The rapid obsolescence of devices, platforms, and operational systems creates difficulties for publishers.
• Student: Much of the digital resources used in the classroom are not digital books. Instead they take the form of platforms, social networks, and other multi-media.
• Teacher: We believe in the harmonization of print and digital. We do not have plans to abandon print literature.

Which re-iterates what we are seeing in South Africa with a lot of digital resources being developed by the education publishing community that aid and abet the use of physical textbooks in the classroom.

South Africa is still grappling with how best to produce and distribute these physical textbooks as the government, in an effort to bring down the cost of books in an already largely subsidized education system, looks to central procurement and distribution models, a concept that levels a body blow at the existing trade and raises concerns around monopolistic tendencies.

There are many different initiatives that look to getting technology out to the children that need to access it. Mobile libraries are popular and effective. One of the more recent initiatives is a mobile, solar-powered, multi-purpose IT unit that “aims to bridge the digital divide for learners from vulnerable and rural communities.” It was launched in Cape Town by Deloitte Belgium, in partnership with non-profit organisations, Close the Gap and Langa-based Brothers for All.

“Technology is fast changing the face of education. Learners today not only have computers to help them with schoolwork, they also use the Internet for research while teachers use technology to enhance lessons. Yet, very little ICT infrastructure exists in vulnerable communities. Through the DigiTruck, Deloitte Belgium hopes to positively impact the education of learners in rural communities with technology,” said Olivier vanden Eynde, Director at Deloitte Belgium/The Netherlands and Founder and MD of Close the Gap.

The project is aligned with the National Development Plan (NDP), which is government’s strategic vision for the country that calls for corporate South Africa to promote employment and education.

Another interesting initiative we came across recently is the 4real Rewards and Loyalty Programme, which at first looked dubious as most rewards programmes do. The company has big plans though and has signed up quite few of the larger retailers. Originally aimed at students, the company’s vision is to create “a national village of retail partners, where cardholders are able to shop, earn cash-back, raise funds for education, as well as support the retailers.” Their mission is to “become the primary source of supplementary funding for educational institutions within South Africa in the next three to five years.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Digital advances in how children are educated in the high end private schools presents a whole new set of difficulties. One that will become more of an issue in the future will be privacy and security.

The use of digital learning materials has great advantages for pupils, because they are better tailored to the individual needs and wishes of the student. As pupils log in and identify themselves, the teacher / parent has a constant overview of what each pupil has done with the subject matter and what the results are. In this way, the teacher gains a better insight into the development and progress of pupils. For these educational purposes, the personal details of pupils are being processed.

It is important that the personal details of children are treated with due care and attention. For this reason, educational publishers in the Netherlands have entered into a privacy agreement to ensure that schools stay in control of the data related to their students.

A relatively new and very successful online solution that aims to help students, teachers and parents and can be found at www.worksheetcloud.com, is an online repository of worksheets based entirely on the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) curriculum. Worksheets are categorised by grade and topic, making it easy to find relevant content. The system is “cloud” based, so though children can access their work from any computer or mobile device via their log in details, each child must by default build up a comprehensive profile over the many years of school life.

Sources:

• www.worksheetcloud.com/how-it-works/
• Netherlands privacy agreement between educational publishers and schools, www.internationalpublishers.org
• www.4realrewards.com
• The DIGI TRUCK – Mobile IT Unit makes it’s first stop at VUB Campus, close-the-gap.org
• Three Visions of the Digital Book for Education – A Report from Brazil, www.internationalpublishers.org
• Pearson chief brands critics ‘naive and ignorant’ as company cuts 4,000 jobs, www.telegraph.co.uk
• Pearson Internal Magazine, za.pearson.com