Butcher, N. (April 1998) The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Harnessing ICTs to Accelerate Social Development: A South African Perspective. SAIDE: Johannesburg |
|||
| South Africa | |||
CONTENTS
Introduction
Information Society and South
Africa: Current trends
Broad overview
Telecommunications and broadcasting
policy
Related policy positions
The long process of converting policy into practice
Education in South Africa
The educational policy environment
Distance education in South Africa
Extrapolating Lessons
Rationale for
distance education and resource based learning
Technologically-driven
educational solutions do not work
Technologies
can either be a catalyst for transformation or a mechanism for maintaining the status quo
Establishing
new structures in South African communities is a long and difficult process
High
quality courses and learning resources are crucial to the success of technology-enhanced
learning initiatives
Education
is a process of engagement between two groups of people, learners and educators
Integrate
quality assurance into projects from the planning phase
Making appropriate decisions
The Example of Satellite Education
Where Does Satellite
Technology Have a Role to Play?
Conclusion
INTRODUCTION:Getting
Past the Rhetoric
The rapid development – and increasing convergence – of information and
communications technologies (ICTs) internationally has stimulated significant debate about
the roles that these technologies might play in accelerate social development(This paper
has avoided the complicated process of trying to define ‘social development’,
assuming that there are some common understandings of the concept and that this will also
be furthered explored in other papers. However, it also does not depend on a particular
understanding of social development, preferring instead to use the practical example of
education in South Africa to illustrate its key points). Most of this debate tends to
centre on the extent to which the adoption and use of these technologies can contribute to
reducing the massive inequity that exists between different societies around the world. It
also finds its way, with an almost inevitable degree of regularity, to observations about
the ‘plight’ of the African continent, where developmental problems and
challenges have been well documented internationally, although sometimes also grossly
over-simplified.
Some of these observations have been repeated to the point of cliché. They tend to reflect a simplistic conviction that Africa will benefit from the development of ICTs. The African Information Society Initiative, for example, notes that it is:
Convinced that building Africa's Information Society will help Africa to accelerate its development plans, stimulate growth and provide new opportunities in education, trade, healthcare, job creation and food security, helping African countries to leapfrog stages of development and raise their standards of living.(http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/)
This type of observation is sometimes tempered with some awareness of the danger that the explosive growth of ICTs may serve to entrench disparity rather than eradicate it. However, even where these practical difficulties are acknowledged, the underlying conviction most often remains:
Some fear that [the continuing growth of the Global Information Society] will only accelerate the marginalization of Africa, as the pace of growth accelerates even more and the gap between those who are linked up and those who are not grows larger… These dangers should not be underestimated, but lamenting them will not stop the rushing train of information technology. And rapidly dropping costs offer the potential for leapfrogging some development obstacles, and for Africa's civil society, governments, and entrepreneurs to take advantage of new technologies. If the minimum infrastructure is put in place, that presents those on the global ‘periphery’ and even in remote rural areas with new opportunities for participation.
(Africa Policy Information Center, 1996 http://www.africapolicy.org/bp/inet.html)
In recognizing the potential role of ICTs in accelerating social development in Africa, these types of observations are, of course, not incorrect. Moreover, they abound in literature about development challenges facing South Africa. There is, however, a nagging sense of unease the more one is exposed to this rhetoric. Repetition of rhetorical statements about the developmental potential of ICTs soon starts to ring hollow, raising more questions than it answers. Why has the promise not been fulfilled, although the rhetoric can certainly no longer be described as a new phenomenon? Why is that the many structures established as a consequence of this rhetoric have had so little impact? If this rhetoric is not supporting the implementation of sustainable solutions to the continent’s problems, in whose interest is it to continue to push it and why? Whose vision for Africa, and South Africa, is actually being articulated, particularly when so much of this rhetoric is the output of international agencies, written by people not even based in Africa?
Unfortunately, this line of questioning easily leads to cynical interpretations of unfolding events, and the motives behind them, that make no useful contribution to the challenges facing South Africa. Furthermore, such interpretations are often based on unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved and in what time-span. In this way, they often gloss over achievements at the micro level in favour of painting gloomy statistical pictures of macro problems. In the South African schooling system, for example, the following types of statistics are often invoked in this way:
The School Register of Needs indicates that only 43 percent of schools have electricity and only around 38 percent have telephones(These statistics obviously do not take account of the size of schools. Many schools lacking such basic infrastructure are likely to be small farm schools, catering for very few learners. Thus, the percentage of learners at schools with this basic infrastructure is likely to be far higher than the percentage of schools. Nevertheless, the fact remains that telephone and electricity penetration remains unacceptably low). Further, it is estimated that 82 percent of schools have no media equipment, 72 percent no media collections, 73 percent no learning equipment, and 69 percent no materials.
(Dept of Education, HSRC, Education Foundation, & RIEP, 1997)
Such statistics are regularly invoked to argue that using ICTs for developmental purposes is simply not possible, as there are too many other problems that require prior resolution.
Furthermore, they sometimes fall into the trap of ascribing ulterior motives to well-intentioned endeavours. This can happen for two reasons, amongst others. First, many well-intentioned endeavours seem to end up using large sums of money with no discernible impact, creating feelings of resentment. Second, there is a proliferation of projects involving the use of ICTs for ‘developmental’ purposes where ulterior motives – which are note necessarily only financial - are clearly primary, and many people simply judge the merit of new endeavours according to their past experiences with such projects.
This can lead to a debilitating, pessimistic rhetoric, which is as unhelpful as that outlined above. It ignores the reality articulated above that, left to itself, the development of ICTs will serve only to entrench or widen the gap between those who have resources and those who do not. I have often found myself arguing that anyone who spends time re-articulating the kinds of statistics articulated above is contributing to the problems they encapsulate rather than working to find solutions. Of course, this should not be taken to imply that articulating problems is not an important first step in solving them. When, however, such articulation is not accompanied by strategies to solve the problems – even if those strategies turn out to be inappropriate – it can do little other than create a sense of despair.
This paper attempts to work its way beyond these simplistic rhetorical statements. It will begin by outlining some of the key features and processes of South African society with respect to ICTs and development. It will then focus in on education, as a key example of development activity, again articulating some of the key elements of this sector. Building on this, the paper will draw on the significant experience that has developed in the country concerning the use of ICTs to support education and training, attempting to extract some of the key lessons learned. The purpose of articulating these lessons is not to develop a quagmire of unachievable principles, which effectively prevents action or implementation. Rather, it is an effort to extrapolate essential lessons demonstrated by recent local and international experience in order to ensure that future initiatives build on this experience rather than repeating costly and educationally pointless exercises. From a South African perspective, I hope that this will contribute to enabling us to get past the rhetoric and start to find meaningful interventions that use ICTs effectively to support social development in the country and possibly, where applicable, beyond.
As has been noted in many policy and research documents, South Africa is in a significantly different position from other African countries with regard to use of ICTs. The following statistical analysis indicates this:
Despite recent progress, Africa remains far behind the developed world in terms of Internet connectivity and usage. For example, it is estimated that 1 in 6 people use the Internet in North America and Europe whereas the comparable figure for Africa, excluding South Africa, is 1 Internet user for every 5,000 people (the figure for Zimbabwe is 1 in 1,100). Even South Africa, with an Internet utilisation rate of 1 in 65, is below the world average of one in forty five.(This information was provided by Tom Butterly, Director of Information Management Consultants in Zimbabwe. For more of this report, please see the following Constraints to the Development of the ‘Wired’ Economy in Africa. (http://www.nua.ie/surveys/analysis/african_analysis.html)
This demonstrates clearly that much of the international debate on ICTs and social development erroneously describes Africa as a homogeneous continent, in which the problems – and hence solutions - are universal.(The listserv set up as part of the Global Knowledge 97 Conference illustrates this very well. Threads of conversation about solutions to ‘African’ problems are very often contributed by people based in Western Europe or North America who clearly have no sense of the complexities and diversity of challenges facing African countries)
As with all other African countries, the challenges faced by South Africa are a combination of problems shared with other countries and particular problems created by the country’s unique history. This is illustrated in the following statistics on telecommunications infrastructure:
As in many areas of South African life, there is a great imbalance in access to telecommunications services. South Africa is the 14th largest user of the Internet in the world, with state-of-the-art communication systems (including cellphones) in many urban areas. In most rural areas, however, there is very poor service, with many South Africans never having made a phone call. The number of phone lines per 100 people (the teledensity) is 9,5 % overall for South Africa. In some wealthy suburbs this figure goes up to 50, whereas in parts of the Eastern Cape the teledensity is around 0,1.(http://usa.org.za/policy.htm )
The challenge of increasing telecommunications density in rural areas is common to many African countries, however there is an additional element of restoring equity in a society that has been ravaged by many years of minority rule. Interestingly, an update on South Africa’s relative status as an Internet user indicates that the country has moved from 14th to 18th position worldwide.(http://www.dns.net/andras/stats.html)
Nevertheless, the point remains that South Africa has, in certain sectors of society, a reasonably well developed ICT infrastructure. There are: two cellular telephone networks (with a third planned); a terrestrial telecommunications carriers (which has achieved the tele-density outlined above); three public terrestrial broadcasting channels and a private pay channel (with a private free-to-air channel due to start broadcasting in late 1998); relatively sophisticated satellite broadcasting infrastructure provided by two companies; and an entrenched culture of Internet use in some sectors of society. With respect to Internet use in South Africa:
No reliable figures are available for the number of users…Estimates tend to vary from 350,000 to 800,000. Based on the domain survey, and assuming similar user-per-hostname ratios for South Africa as for the rest of the world (about 5 users per hostname), 420,000 South African users in July 1996 was in line with the 65m estimated users worldwide at that time. A more conservative figure was 250,000, which I would regard as a lower bound. In July 1997, the domain survey estimate yields 600,000 South African users.(http://www.dns.net/andras/stats.html)
Figure one, which maps out the range of Internet Service Providers, offers further evidence of the fact that the country’s Internet infrastructure is relatively well developed.
Telecommunications and Broadcasting Policy
One of the current South African government’s immediate priorities when coming into power was to replace apartheid policy with a set of policy positions that more accurately reflected the contexts and needs of the country as a whole. This process has taken up significant (some might now argue excessive) amounts of energy over the past four years, but has ensured that there is now policy in most areas. The two areas most directly relevant to building an information society in which policy has been developed are telecommunications and broadcasting.
(View figure two: Phasing out telecommunications exclusivity in South Africa)
There is now official policy and legislation governing telecommunications. Perhaps the most immediately obvious aspect to this policy, which was released in 1996, is that it granted a period of exclusivity to the existing terrestrial telecommunications carrier – Telkom SA – in certain areas:
Telkom will be licensed to operate the PSTN [public switched telephone network] and the public switched data network (PSDN) for a period of exclusivity with clear-cut contractual obligations and performance criteria, as determined by the Regulator. The rough aim is to install 20 telephones per 100 population by the year 2000, recognising that this in part depends on demand, which itself depends in part on affordability. Telkom’s stated plan to double the existing network and fully modernise it is seen as a viable means to accomplish the universal access/service goals.(http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/policy/telewp.html)
The policy does, however, map out clearly how this period of exclusivity is expected to pan out, as figure two indicates.
In addition to this, however, the policy, and legislation which flowed from it, has also established two important new mechanisms. The first is the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, which takes responsibility for regulating telecommunications activities in South Africa, both in areas where monopoly has already been eroded and in those areas reflected in figure two where it will be removed gradually. The second is the Universal Service Agency, which has been tasked with the responsibility of extending telecommunications access in South Africa’s historically disadvantaged communities. The work of the Agency is outlined in more detail below.
Of course, in addition to these developments, the policy covers a range of issues on telecommunications and development, market structures, ownership, radio frequencies, tariffs, and other relevant issues. The full document can be viewed at: (http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/policy/telewp.html.)
In the broadcasting arena, recent policy developments started before 1994, with, for example, the establishment of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) in 1993. The government department responsible for broadcasting - the Department of Communications - is also responsible for telecommunications and postal services. Much of its initial work focused on the pressing need for development of policy on telecommunications, with the result that the process for developing policy on broadcasting is not yet complete, although it is currently under way.
The IBA was established in 1993 by Parliamentary Act 153 of 1993. This Act states its purpose as providing ‘for the regulation of broadcasting activities in the public interest’(Parliament of South Africa, 1993, Independent Broadcasting Authority Act 153 of 1993, Cape Town, http://wn.apc.org/iba/legis.htm), setting up the IBA for this purpose. The IBA set out several policy positions in its Triple Enquiry Report of 1995. This report was described as the Triple Enquiry Report, because it involved three related enquiries into the protection and viability of public broadcasting services, cross media control of broadcasting services, and local television content and South African music.
The process of developing policy for broadcasting in South Africa is now well advanced, although as of June 1998 it is not yet completed. A Green Paper on Broadcasting was released in late 1997, and drafts of a white paper have now been posted on the World Wide Web. Although these drafts are not official policy - and hence carry large disclaimers indicating that they are not for quotation - it is worth exploring both the green paper and draft white paper to gain clarity on the general directions they are starting to propose. Given the wide range of issues covered in the policy and this paper use of education as a case study, I will focus on those aspects of the policy that relate to education.
The green paper is formulated as a series of questions, designed with the intention of eliciting public response on the main broadcasting issues. Many of these contain references to educational broadcasting. The paper refers back to the broadcasting requirements set out by the IBA legislation, including the references to educational broadcasting quoted above. An important extension of this is the introduction of various models for the SABC. Although the green paper does not prefer any of the proposed models, it does introduce in one of the models the possibility of introducing a single dedicated channel. This possibility was examined by the IBA in its Triple Enquiry Report, which outlined some of the pros and cons of such a move and committed itself to conducting technical exploration necessary to determine the feasibility of such a channel without committing itself explicitly to it. The possibility of establishing such a channel has also been mooted in various other policy spheres more recently, being debated for example at an educational broadcasting conference convened by the SABC and Department of Education in February, 1998.
The paper also devotes a section to describing the legacy of educational development in South Africa. It goes on to state that:
Many countries acknowledge the particular role that broadcasting services can play in imparting useful information of general community interest, and, more particularly, materials that are genuinely educational in nature and support life-long learning, even to the extent of being integrated in formal programmes run by educational institutions. Concepts of distance learning and open learning are quite familiar to the broadcasting community, although they have not as yet been embraced by the South African Broadcasting System and educational institutions.(Department of Communications, 1997, Broadcasting Policy, Green Paper for Public Discussion, http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/policy/broadcasting.html)
It adds to this that ‘it is obviously worth exploring the role that broadcasting might play in providing more and better information and education services to the children in particular’(Department of Communications, 1997, Broadcasting Policy, Green Paper for Public Discussion, http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/policy/broadcasting.html), a statement that provides some support to the process of planning a school based service.
The green paper then poses
specific questions on educational broadcasting, which provide a useful guide to the
planning process:
• What is the role that broadcasting services can play in helping
to address the educational needs of the country?
• What role can broadcasting services play in the education of
children, particularly their early education?
(Department of Communications, 1997, http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/policy/broadcasting.html)
Like the IBA, the Department of Communication also raises questions that are indirectly relevant to education. These include issues of local content, where, for example, the following question is raised: ‘How can South Africa play a role in developing a regional production sector that is culturally and developmentally relevant to Southern Africa (e.g. educational programmes, music industry)?’(Department of Communications, 1997, Broadcasting Policy, Green Paper for Public Discussion, http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/policy/broadcasting.html). Likewise, the issue of language is also raised, with questions asked about the relationship between broadcasting and the development of the country’s official languages. Another important component of the paper is an exploration of the development of satellite, optical fibre, and cable technologies, as well as the development of the Internet and data/image broadcasting. Specific reference is made to the potential roles that these technologies might play in support of education. Although no specific questions are posed in relation to the use of these technologies for educational purposes, the broader policy decisions taken in these areas will clearly be of interest to people involved in educational broadcasting.
Although it is too early to quote from the drafts of the white paper, it is interesting to note, on perusal, that these drafts are picking up some of the common threads outlined above. There is again a strong commitment to the educational responsibilities of the public broadcaster, which in many ways confirms the importance of these planning processes. There is also reference again to language and local content issues. Importantly, much weight is given to the development of new technologies. The difficult policy issues of dealing effectively with these technologies will clearly be important for educational broadcasting, particularly as much reference is made to possible educational roles for these technologies.
In addition to these two primary policy documents, there are other policy positions that have been developed recently in South Africa, which focus specifically on the development of an information society. In many ways, these policy processes were ushered in by the Information Society and Development Conference, a G7 Conference held in South Africa in 1996. At this Conference, South Africa put forward a position paper, which articulates a range of national initiatives designed to foster an information society in South Africa. The paper notes that:
The information revolution is changing the world very rapidly. These changes are global and inescapable. Further, the rate of change in the information revolution continues to increase exponentially. This will have enormous economic consequences, and great potential for spreading benefits currently enjoyed by developed countries. This great rate of change demands a very flexible approach to policy formulation. However, the challenges facing developing countries are different in many respects to those facing developed countries. In developing countries, the Information Society must serve national development needs, and focus on the disadvantaged sectors and under-developed areas.(http://wn.apc.org/nitf/ppexec.htm)
In response to this challenge, the paper identified a range of national interventions, each intended to contribute to serving these ‘national development needs’. These were:
1. Establishment of Centres of
Excellence to develop applications meeting the needs of the communities they serve;
2. Establishment of Multi-Purpose Community Centres for universal access, in which IT will
be the backbone for a range of services defined by their communities;
3. Development of a Government Online pilot project to support the development of open and
efficient government;
4. Development and implementation of a national qualifications framework for IT; and
5. Support for the establishment of a Contemporary African Music and Arts Archive to
record and promote South African national cultural and artistic heritage.
The progress of some of these will be discussed in the following section.
Another government department
with responsibility for examining issues related to the developing Information Society is
the Department of Arts, Culture, Science, and Technology (DACST). This Department has also
released a policy document on science and technology, which refers to the importance of
developing a South African vision for the information society. The paper poses the
following questions:
• What should we do to prevent being marginalised by the
accelerating rate of innovation in information technology in the world?
• How can we participate globally without merely throwing open our
markets to foreign products, thus increasing our dependency on the developed world?
• How can we empower ourselves with a capacity for IT innovation?
(http://www.polity.org.za/govdocs/white_papers/scitech.html)
It then sets out a range of strategies for encouraging innovation and diffusion of science and technology throughout South Africa, many of which represent efforts to find answers to the above questions.
The Department of Communication has subsequently released another position paper entitled South Africa’s National Information and Communications Superhighway. The paper asserts that ‘South Africa will have an advanced Fibre Optic-based communications network in place in the next three years’(http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/pr/1998/pr0304a.html). This assertion is based in large part on the assertion that:
The idea of consolidating government networks and to ensure that the various existing networks talk to each other is vital for the attainment of a fully automated government that is accessible 24 hours day and to all citizens. The government is the single most important producer of information and has a special obligation to share its information with the public.(http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/pr/1998/pr0304a.html).
Further recommendations approved
by South Africa’s cabinet and document in this paper are:
• Consolidating government’s network and technology in order
to ensure efficient service to the public;
• Establishing a ministerial information and communications
technology investment cluster in order to further speed up the growth of a sector that has
massive potential and which will place South Africa on the global communications highway.
This will be convened by the Department of Communications;
• Defining and developing the One-Stop shop concept
• Preparing legislation for e-commerce, digital signature and
multimedia convergence and encryption;
• Setting up a Centre for Information and Communications
Technologies as an advisory body comprised of both the public and private sectors; and
• Continuing work to lay out a high-speed information network
throughout the country.
(http://www.doc.gov.za/docs/pr/1998/pr0304a.html).
These projects have only just received Cabinet approval, and thus have not yet started in any meaningful way, although there are some pockets of activity.
Finally, the Department of education has been involved in various policy initiatives relevant to the use of ICTs in South Africa. These are, however, explored separately below as part of this paper’s more in-depth focus on harnessing the potential of ICTs for educational purposes.
The
Long Process of Converting Policy into Practice
Given the diversity and complexity of South African society, it is simply not possible to
provide an exhaustive analysis of initiatives that focus on supporting the development of
the so-called Information Society in the country. Instead, I will describe a small range
of initiatives that is, in different ways representative of the types of endeavour taking
place in this field.
In planning developmental interventions for South Africa that seek to harness the potential of ICTs, much emphasis has been laid on the concept of community centres(Such centres are referred to by a wide variety of names, including, to name a few: Community Learning Centres; Multi-Purpose Community Centres; Community Information Centres; and Community Colleges. Each of these has slightly different implications, but refers to the same basic concept) as a strategy for implementation. Often these processes are caught in the same paradox, namely that it is incredibly difficult to plan a national or systemic intervention which has, as its engine a structure that, by definition, will vary from community to community. Nevertheless, many agencies are planning – or starting to implement – ‘community’ centres in one form or another. Central to most is the strategy of using ICTs to accelerate social development. Three such initiatives will be described briefly here.
Networking and Information Sharing InitiativesUniversal Service Agency (USA) and Multi-Purpose Community Centres
As has been indicated above, the Universal Service Agency was established by telecommunications policy, with a mandate to provide universal access to telecommunications to all South Africans. Its mission is to ‘promote affordable Universal Access and Universal Service in Information and Communication Technologies for disadvantaged communities in South Africa, to facilitate development, empowerment and economic growth’.As a primary strategy for achieving this, the USA has picked up on one of the initiatives proposed at ISAD, namely the establishment of Multi-Purpose Community Centres. It intends to support this initiative through the establishment of telecentres. The telecentre is intended to serve a particular community, and, as well as telecommunications, many are intended to provide other services such as small business support, health, and education and training services. In this way, a telephone will be used by many people for many purposes - making it economically viable and meeting the needs of the community.
The USA notes that, for telecentres to be a long term solution, they must become sustainable. Thus, it has committed itself to working with other organizations, such as schools, libraries, churches, existing community centres, and civic organizations. The key point is not just to run a few projects, but to develop a replicable model of running telecentres effectively in disadvantaged areas.
The USA also acknowledges the need for a range of support services. These include: development of partnerships with other initiatives; establishment of a national training scheme; monitoring of telecentres; and establishment of a computer clearing-house.
To support this work, a Universal Service Fund has been established, which will mainly be financed through licence conditions established by SATRA for telecommunications carriers. The first few centres have been established in early 1998.(Information taken from: http://usa.org.za/ http://usa.org.za/works/bplan.htm )
Arts and Culture Centres
The Department of Arts, Culture, Science, and Technology (DACST) has approved plans to establish 43 arts and culture centres in disadvantaged communities within South Africa. This project is worth mentioning, both because it represents a different intended use for centres from those conventionally stated (conventional uses mostly being health, education, and telecommunications) and because sites have already been identified for the project to begin. DACST is keen to ensure that these centres are not only used for arts and culture purposes, however, particularly as this would not lead to the implementation of sustainable structures. Hence, it is seeking suitable partners to find a range of alternative uses for the centres. Technology-Enhanced Learning Initiative in Southern Africa
The Technology-Enhanced Learning Initiative in Southern Africa (TELISA) emerged from processes of developing policy for technology-enhanced learning in South Africa (described in more detail below). In essence, TELISA is a plan that focuses on initiate co-operation amongst countries in the SADC region in their renewal and expansion of education using appropriate, available, and cost effective technologies. It incorporates a range of proposed strategic thrusts, including plans for information networking, professional development for educators, a community forum programme; and Internet connectivity projects.An important element of the implementation strategies underpinning this plan is the establishment of community centres. A recent communiqué on a TELISA distribution list has noted that
The implementation of TELISA has now started with the finance having been approved for the establishment of an ICT Centre in Maseru, Lesotho. The Centre will be officially opened on 5 October 1998.
Although this first centre is not in South Africa, the plan envisages the creation of similar centres in the country.(http://pgw.org/telisa)
PRODDER
The Programme for Development Research (PRODDER) at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is a Southern African development information initiative, which collects and disseminates information on Southern African development issues and role-players. It is PRODDER’s mission to provide an appropriate, comprehensive and dynamic development information service to people and organisations. Since 1987, PRODDER has established itself as a leading Southern African development information service, compiling and disseminating information on thousands of Southern African development-related organizations. PRODDER has established a database of development-related organizations and projects, and releases newsletters on relevant issues periodically. It also runs a free electronic-mail news service.
(http://www.prodder.co.za/aboutprod.html)
National Information Technology Forum
The National Information Technology Forum (NITF) was formed at a Conference convened by the Centre for Development of Information and Technology Policy (CDITP), during 1995. Its mission is to offer policy option proposals that would ensure the socio-economic development of all the people of South Africa through universal availability of access to information technology resources, as well as the economic development of the country through a well developed, technologically sound and appropriate national information infrastructure and technology support base. The NITF is a forum representing key interests in South African society (government, labour, business, academia, and the community). It is a fee-based membership association. Telematics for African Development Consortium
The Telematics for African Development Consortium is a free information network designed to keep South Africans (and increasingly – but slowly - Southern Africans) in touch with key initiatives taking place. The Consortium meets every two months and runs a free e-mail information distribution service focusing on issues of South African interest. The Consortium is also developing a web site of relevant resource links(http://www.saide.org.za/tel/). The Consortium is an open organization, which has over 430 participants including a number of government departments, funding agencies, non-governmental organizations, parastatals, private sector enterprises, and educational institutions. Internet Service Providers’ Association
The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) was officially established in June 1996 in response to a perceived threat to the independent Internet access industry posed by the 1996 launch of Telkom’s South African Internet eXchange (SAIX). Currently, ISPA, as well as individual members are involved with aiding and consulting in the process that will lead to regulatory resolution of problems in the South African Internet access market.ISPA currently controls the South African Internet peering points, located in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Provided they fulfil certain conditions, All ISPA member organizations have access to the peering point. This enables ISPA member companies to carry their country-internal Internet traffic more effectively without having to rely on inter-connect agreements in the United States or Europe.
ISPA has historically served as an active industry body, facilitating exchange between the different independent Internet access providers in South Africa. Collaboration levels have historically been very high, as the SA Internet access industry is small and personable. A case in point has been the collaboration between companies towards the establishment of the South African peering points. Both the Johannesburg and Cape Town peering points are running and route high amounts of traffic with very low failure rates. The points have become known as JINX (Johannesburg Internet Exchange) and CINX (Cape Town Internet Exchange). The ISPA continues to investigate other areas of collaboration, such as a root domain name server for South Africa and other projects.
The ComTask Report and Government Communication and Information SystemIts purpose was to compile a set of recommendations on an information strategy for the South African government. As the report points out,
A new communications system is an economic and political imperative for the ‘information age’. Its purpose must be to provide a network throughout the country which provides every citizen with the information required to live and to control their lives.
The ComTask report analyses government communications strategies in 1996, explores the South African media, sketches out development challenges, presents international perspectives on government communication systems, and then presented a set of recommendations on the way forward. These include recommendations on the introduction of new structures (and dissolution of some existing ones), on personnel and training within the government, on roles for the Department of Foreign Affairs to improve South Africa’s image internationally, and on developing and increasing access to information.
The establishment of the
Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), in May 1998, has followed up this
report. The GCIS:
is envisaged as a system of government communications headed by a Secretariat
characterised as:
• A strategising body located in the Presidency dealing with issues
of government message, communications strategy, and corporate image.
• A body to integrate, coordinate and rationalise the work of all
communications structures in government, including training.
The GCIS sees the implementation
of the structural changes recommended by the ComTask Group Report. Although still in its
infancy, it has set the following objectives for itself for its first year:
• Development communications: The aim of this is to ensure that all
South Africans are empowered to know their rights and to take full advantage of the
socio-economic opportunities. In this regard GCIS expects to play an important role in
servicing tele-centres and multi-purpose community/information centres.
• Streamlining the government communications system: It is
envisaged that the Secretariat shall hold regular meetings with ministerial and
departmental communicators. It is also envisaged that the relationship between the GCIS
and the provincial structures shall be defined during the course of 1998. Areas of
collaboration within the system will include that of strategy and message; international
image-building; bulk-buying of advertising space, and training.
• Training: One of the immediate ComTask proposals that GCIS will
be attending to is the establishment of a National Training Board for government
communication. This will service the whole of government.
• Building partnerships with the Media: The GCIS relationship with
the media shall be built on the recognition of the principle that they share a common
responsibility and obligation: that of keeping the public informed. At the same time, GCIS
shall explore avenues to ensure that a diversity of voices can be heard through the South
African media.
• Better utilisation of Internet Technology: It is envisaged that
the GCIS Website shall provide a single entry point for government information, with all
government departments being encouraged to develop their own websites.
(http://www.gcis.gov.za/)
SchoolNet SA has identified the
following activities for itself;
• Co-ordinate and facilitate the implementation and training of ICT
resources and expertise to South African schools on a national scale;
• Establish meaningful partnerships with government departments,
business and schools;
• Play a contributory role by developing programmes and services in
partnership with local and international organizations;
• Create awareness of the use of ICT in education through press
articles, conferences and seminars, electronic media and the Internet;
• Lobby for and advocate the utilisation of ICT in education to all
levels of government, business and civil society;
• Continually broaden the process to all relevant stakeholders on a
national basis to ensure a strong support and user base;
• Develop capacity and training for skills transfer and intensive
training on ICT and computer-based applications; and
• Develop and encourage the generation of local content and
curriculum and educator aids.(http://www.school.za)
African Information Society InitiativeAnalysis of Trends
The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of Ministers adopted The African Information Society Initiative (AISI): an Action Framework to Build Africa's Information and Communication Infrastructure in May 1996. AISI is also the principal activity within the United Nations System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa programme on Harnessing Information Technology for Development (HITD/SIA).AISI had its roots in April 1995 with the African Regional Symposium on Telematics for Development organised by ECA, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). These organizations and others, subsequently collaborated on a series of activities, under the name ‘African Networking Initiative (ANI)’, to engage African stakeholders in an evaluation of a strategy for action - AISI. The AISI has set itself the goal of realizing a sustainable information society in Africa by 2010. It indicates that, in order to achieve this vision, African member States will need to:
• Ensure the continuous flow of information within the society by supporting initiatives to improve and create new information and communication services in different sectors of the society - education, health, employment, culture, environment, trade, finance, tourism, transport and commerce;
• Create a continent-wide information and telecommunication network that allows low-cost and reliable communication with other users in Africa and across the globe;
• Achieve maximum benefits from available information by encouraging the development of systems that allow wide dissemination to individuals, business communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the public sector;
• Foster a new generation of men and women in Africa that uses information and communication technologies to leverage the development of their nations;
• Link Africa with the rest of the world by improving the flow of new technologies in both directions and exporting intellectual products and services to the rest of the world.Thus, AISI attempts to provide a common international policy framework for action in participating African countries.(http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi)
Acacia Project
The Acacia Initiative is an international effort led by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to empower sub-Saharan African communities with the ability to apply information and communication technologies to their own social and economic development. It is expected to involve significant funding during its first five years and to grow to maturity over the first quarter of the 21st century.Acacia has been designed and is being led by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC). IDRC is a Canadian public corporation, created in 1970 to strengthen research and information capacities in the developing world, and to assist developing countries in addressing their own problems more effectively. Over its 25-year history, IDRC has made significant investments in research, capacity building, and information and communication throughout the developing world. In fact, the Centre was among the pioneers in the adaptation and use of ICTs in Africa, and Acacia will build on IDRC’s existing and emerging networks, programs, and partnerships. One key such partnership is with the AISI. Acacia will work mainly with rural and disadvantaged communities, and particularly their women and youth groups.
World Links for Development
(http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/5_e.htm)
The World Links for Development (WorLD) programme is an initiative of the World Bank. Its aim is to establish educational on-line communities for secondary school students and teachers around the world in order to expand distance learning opportunities, improve educational outcomes, enhance cultural understanding across nations, and build broad support for economic and social development. WorLD aims to fulfil this vision by linking students and teachers in at least 1,500 secondary schools in 40 developing countries by the year 2000. WorLD linkages will facilitate the exchange of science projects, writing exercises, historical perspectives, artwork, and dreams between students in developing countries and their peers around the world. It aims to achieve this by employing the following strategies:
• Promoting ‘connectivity’ for developing country schools;
• Supplying educational content for collaborative learning and link schools around the world;
• Training in a wide range of educational applications of information technology;
• Encouraging telecommunications policies which lower operating costs;
• Supporting monitoring and evaluation of the educational impact of this programme; and
• Leveraging additional resources through other agencies and corporate sponsors.WorLD initiated activity in South Africa in March, 1997. It is working closely with existing initiatives on the ground and coordinate its activities with the government, the Soweto Technology Project, and the newly established National School Net SA. WorLD will provide initial teacher training and connectivity for ten schools in the network and work closely with the IDRC on various aspects of the programme.
(Information taken from: http://www.worldbank.org/worldlinks/english/mission.htm
http://www.worldbank.org/worldlinks/english/strateg.htm http://www.worldbank.org/worldlinks/english/safrica1.htm)
The above descriptions indicate that there is a wealth of initiatives in South Africa, involving a range of participants. Although they do not necessarily emerge automatically from the descriptions provided above, it possible to extrapolate a range of trends from these initiatives. These are mentioned briefly below, in particular order of priority. They are drawn not only from those projects described above, but also from experience of a range of other similar projects in South Africa.
Most initiatives are still in their infancy.
The descriptions above suggest clearly that initiatives seeking to harness the potential
of ICTs to accelerate social development are still, in the main, in their infancy in South
Africa. A significant proportion of the descriptions of projects still focuses on broad
policy frameworks and plans for action. This indicates how recent the development of
initiatives has been, as well as how the number of initiatives has mushroomed over the
past two or three years. More importantly, though, it points to the reality that the type
of positive rhetoric described in the introduction to this paper – and often present
in project descriptions – is as yet largely untested. It is thus premature to suggest
either that the rhetoric is unjustified or that is has some legitimate foundation.
Many projects have set unrealistically ambitious
objectives.
A feature of projects in this area is that they often fall prone to setting
unrealistically ambitious objectives. This is reflected in some of the lists of objectives
provided above. The ambitious nature of many of these projects is thrown into sharper
focus when one examines the budgets set to achieve the stated objectives. These budgets
often simply do not contain sufficient money to ensure sustainability of initiatives. This
is most clearly seen when one examines the amounts of money set aside for recurrent costs
and for professional development of those people who are expected to benefit. These
allocations are usually woefully inadequate. Many projects in this area would do well to
learn from the many endeavours that have collapsed under the weight of undue expectation,
often created by the people who conceptualize the projects themselves. Objectives that are
more modest and more realistic deadlines need to become part of the planning of projects
in this area. Indeed, it can rightfully be claimed that the establishment of unrealistic
objectives in some projects is a symptom of a lack of thorough implementation planning. It
is, however, clearly also a reflection of the enormity of the tasks at hand.
Most projects still rely on ‘soft’
funding.
A key reason contributing to the above problem is the fact that the vast majority of
projects in this area rely on ‘soft’ money – money from funding agencies or
earmarked finances – for their funding. Thus, models of financial sustainability do
not emerge, rendering the medium- to long-term future of projects very fragile. This is
not a criticism of the projects themselves. On the contrary, it is often remarkable to
note what people manage to achieve in often very difficult circumstances. However, it does
indicate that these initiatives remain very much at the margins of social activity and
limited in impact, although the policy frameworks described above indicate some
possibility of this shifting in the next five to ten years. Importantly, it also
acknowledges that these financial models must change in the medium- to long-term if
projects seeking to harness the capacity of ICTS to accelerate social development are to
make a meaningful impact.
Many projects are strongly dependent on the
enthusiasm and energies of committed individuals.
Again, this observation is not a criticism of the projects themselves, or of the people
who run them. Rather, it is an indication of the lack of skills in this area in South
Africa. It also serves, at least in part, to explain why so many of these projects have
international links or are initiated by international agencies. What is of some concern,
however, is that this trend shows little sign of changing. This is particularly worrying
because ICTs will never really be successfully harnessed to accelerate social development
until the communities intended to benefit from such interventions are initiated and driven
by people from those communities. Visions for social development created by international
or national agencies simply cannot replicate the energy and understanding of people whose
future is inextricably linked to the success of developmental projects. At the micro
level, of course, there are projects where this has started to happen, but this does not
yet represent a fundamental shift in the way such projects are generally conceptualized
and managed. This type of move has unfortunately been curtailed, in some cases, by
examples where attempts to localize initiative and innovation have stumbled on personal
greed and ambition.
Too many initiatives are weighed down by
excessive discussion, which prevents meaningful action and wastes resources.
South Africa seems to be developing something of a reputation for talking a lot about
problems and understanding them very well, but failing to convert this energy into
meaningful action. This is reflected, to a certain extent, in the descriptions provided
above, both in the heavy weighting of policy positions and in the fact that plans and
frameworks for action remain largely unfulfilled. There is a proliferation of processes
intended to stimulate discussion on the potential of harnessing ICTs to accelerate social
development, but these very seldom lead to practical interventions at the micro level.
Many projects experience the paradox of trying to
create international or national solutions for local problems.
This may sound unusual on the face of it. However, it is one o the most important
stumbling blocks in the implementation of projects. Many aspects of using ICTS to
accelerate social development simply demand locally tailored interventions, which take
account of the unique contexts in which they will be implemented. Unfortunately, though,
because a large number of interventions is conceptualized and implemented at international
or national level, it becomes very difficult to orchestrate such interventions. Thus,
where practical impact is made, it is very often unsustainable. This problem is both
caused and exacerbated by many other the other trends identified above.
It is, by now, well documented that one of the key challenges facing South Africa in this period of social change is the need to transform an education and training system which has been ravaged by many years of apartheid educational policy and international isolation. At the same time as the country’s education and training system is expected to deal with this difficult process of transformation, however, it is being exposed to many other pressures which it shares in common with all education and training systems around the world. These include: rapid development and convergence in functionality of information, communications, and broadcasting technologies; deteriorating boundaries of nationality and national markets; growing pressure on traditional education to provide access to far larger numbers of students, of all ages; a crisis of confidence in traditional approaches to education, which have often confused education with transfer of information; and dwindling funding - in real terms - for education and training purposes (particularly in the public sector).
South Africa has a
well-established policy environment, which provides a clear framework for tackling the
challenges outlined above. In seeking to find solutions to these problems, many people
operating within this policy framework are exploring the potential role of ICTs in
education and training. Unfortunately, however, there is a widespread legacy of failed
technological initiatives in South African and world education. Reasons for these failures
are many and varied, but include the following:
• Imposition of inflexible technological choices made without
reference to educational need and context.
• Lack of investment in integrated curriculum and course design and
development processes.
• Integrating technologies into programmes based on poor
pedagogical practice (a problem especially acute in South Africa where the legacy of
fundamental pedagogics(Fundamental pedagogics is a pseudo-philosophy of education that was
developed to underpin Christian National Education, which was in turn the architecture of
the apartheid education system. The philosophy advocates) is still so strong).
• Unexpectedly high operating costs, and a very high percentage of
total expenditure on recurrent costs, which militates against achieving economies of
scale.
• Underestimation of the need for well-developed systems of student
support, designed as an integral part of overall courses.
• Lack of attention to designing and implementing effective
management and administrative systems.
• Paucity of people with the necessary skills and expertise to
staff programmes, and a corresponding absence of clear professional development strategies
designed to overcome this problem.
Before reflecting on reasons for this – and offering some tentative suggestions about appropriate approaches – it is necessary to outline in more detail aspects of the South African education and training system. By necessity, this overview is selective, and not a comprehensive picture.
The Educational Policy EnvironmentThe General Policy Environment
A number of policy processes have a bearing on the use of ICTs in education in South
Africa. Some of these have dealt with education generally, others specifically with the
schooling system, and still others with technology-enhanced learning and distance
education. Many of these policy processes were initiated by the African National
Congress’s (ANC’s) Education Desk before the ANC came to power in 1994. They led
to the development of the ANC’s Policy Framework for Education and Training
and to the Implementation Plan for Education and Training, documents that were a
foundation for the Department of Education’s White Paper on Education and Training,
produced by the government after the 1994 elections.
The first educational White Paper
establishes clear policy commitments to education generally. While it does not refer
specifically to educational broadcasting, it remains crucial because the general
philosophy, goals, values, and principles for the new education and training system
outlined will need to form the basis of any plan to explore the use of technology. The
Technology-Enhanced Learning Investigation (TELI) - completed in 1996 - summarized these
as follows:
• a commitment to providing access to quality education, and a
right to basic education as enshrined in the Bill of Rights;
• a commitment to developing the full potential of South
Africa’s people for their active participation in all processes of a democratic
society and their contribution to the economic growth and development of the country;
• redressing imbalances of the past through the implementation of
new teaching and learning strategies for the effective and flexible delivery of services
within various learning contexts and through the equitable distribution of technological
and other resources;
• implementing learner-centred and outcomes-based approaches to
education and training in order to achieve quality learning based on recognized national
standards;
• enabling all people to value, have access to and succeed in
lifelong education and training;
• developing a problem-solving and creative environment in which
new technologies are harnessed to produce knowledge, products, and services;
• integrating technology into the strategies intended to reach
these goals so as to advance South Africa’s ability to harness new technologies in
its growth and development.(Department of Education, 1996, Technology-Enhanced Learning
in South Africa: A Discussion Document, Report of the Ministerial Committee for
Development Work on the Role of Technology that will Support and Enhance Learning,
Pretoria, p. 11)
The first White Paper is also important because it establishes a general approach to reconstruction and development in the school system, an approach which is extended and deepened in the Education White Paper 2: The Organization, Governance and Funding of Schools and the ensuing South African Schools Act. Again, neither this White Paper nor the Act refers specifically to the use of technologies, but they provide a crucial backdrop to the conceptualization and development of any technology-enhanced learning plan. The second White Paper commits government to achieving ‘an equitable distribution of education provision throughout the nation’(Department of Education, 1996, Education White Paper 2: The Organization, Governance and Funding of Schools, Notice 130 of 1996, Cape Town, p. 10). This suggests clearly that any technology-enhanced learning strategy will have to guard against inadvertently contributing to the dilemma by catering exclusively to those schools that have the necessary physical infrastructure and skills amongst their educators to be able to use the service effectively. In order to combat this, it will have to focus on strategies to broaden access to such technologies and on providing professional development to teachers on how to use them effectively.
The second White Paper goes on to describe the organization, governance, and financing of schools. Of particular relevance is a commitment to governance policy based on the core values of democracy. In effect, this means that representative ‘governing bodies will have substantial decision-making powers, selected from a menu of powers according to their capacity’(Department of Education, 1996, Education White Paper 2: The Organization, Governance and Funding of Schools, Notice 130 of 1996, Cape Town, p. 10). This menu of responsibilities includes ‘school budget priorities’, ‘purchase of textbooks, material and equipment’, and ‘payment of…accounts’(Department of Education, 1996, p. 20). This will affect the nature of plans to increase access to technology-enhanced learning through the provision of physical infrastructure. Such plans will need to be careful to devise sustainable solutions rather than simply dumping hardware on schools and then forcing commitment by governing bodies to unaffordable expenses.
Curriculum 2005Curriculum 2005 has, as its foundation, the establishment of the National Qualification Framework (NQF) and the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA), both of which were officially established in Act No. 58 of 1995 with the intention of giving structural weight to efforts to transform education at school level by moving from content-based to outcomes-based education (OBE). Curriculum 2005 seeks to harness the potential of OBE, using it to build better quality educational provision at school level. It seeks to shift the focus ‘from teacher input (instructional offerings or syllabuses expressed in terms of content) to focusing on the outcomes of the learning process’(Department of Education, 1997, Curriculum 2005: Lifelong Learning for the 21st Century: A User’s Guide, Department of Education, Pretoria, p.32). The intention of Curriculum 2005 is to create nationally agreed outcomes and criteria for assessing the achievement of these outcomes, with a view to ensuring common recognition and acceptance of qualifications and building greater flexibility into the education system in terms of where and how learning takes place and is assessed. To this end, learning area committees were established by the Department of Education, one for each of eight identified learning areas, to identify specific learning area outcomes that reflect the critical cross-field outcomes identified by SAQA (where critical cross-field outcomes are general outcomes that express intended results of education and training in a broad sense). The results of the work of these committees are available from the Department of Education.
Clearly, though, this is only the first - and possibly easiest - step of implementing Curriculum 2005. The more difficult process is to attempt to use this foundation of nationally agreed outcomes and assessment criteria to shift teaching and learning practices in classrooms around South Africa. It is at this level that the enormity of the objectives of Curriculum 2005 becomes evident. Curriculum 2005 seeks to change some of the traditional approaches to teaching, such as the following kinds of general shifts (which are illustrative of the types of shifts and not an exhaustive list):
• from passive to active learners;
• from examination-driven to ongoing assessment;
• from rote learning to critical thinking, reasoning, reflection, and action; and
• from textbook/worksheet-bound, teacher-centred education to learner-centred education, where the teacher is a facilitator of the learning environment.
Debates about the relative merits of outcomes-based education (OBE), which have been rife as the implementation of Curriculum 2005 starts to take effect, have had the unfortunate consequence of creating polarity of opinion based on qualitative interpretations of OBE. In the public debate, the new curriculum has often been reduced to either a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ concept, depending on one’s perspective. OBE is not, however, an intrinsically ‘good’ or ‘bad’ concept; its value depends on the way in which it is implemented and measurement of this value will shift significantly according to the context in which implementation is taking place. Nor does the articulation of learning outcomes constitute a measure of educational quality of any course or programme. Nevertheless, clear articulation of the intended outcomes of a course or programme does provide an essential initial tool that can be applied in measuring the quality of educational provision, and as such is an important step in establishing transparency in educational provision.
Because it challenges traditional pedagogies, the implementation of Curriculum 2005 is complex and highly contested. The implementation process has been further complicated by parallel efforts to establish democratic governance at school level and by the evolving relationships being established between national and provincial departments of education.(A key feature of educational transformation in South Africa since 1994 has been the replacement of racially defined education departments with geopolitically defined provincial departments of education. This change has created complex relationships and poorly defined responsibilities. The move was intended to give provincial departments responsibility for implementation, while retaining responsibility for national policy (‘norms and standards’ and ‘conditions of service’ for teachers) at national level. The new reality is that agreements reached on policy and implementation issues at national level generate responsibilities for provincial departments of education which they are often unable to carry out, because of lack of managerial capacity, or simply because their budgets (designed and legally approved before the new mandate is received) are too small. As a result, the relationship between the national and provincial departments is evolving in two contradictory directions which need to be monitored: while there are moves to increase the autonomy of provincial departments, the decision-making and negotiation processes which might resolve the current tensions have yet to be designed) Equally, though, the success of its implementation is a crucial element in the transformation of South African education and training, and, to be most useful, technology-enhanced learning projects will need to ensure that they contribute constructively to ensuring this success, rather than impeding it.
Technology-Enhanced Learning and Distance Education1. Technologies to support the provision of course materials to learners
These technologies are made up predominantly of the wide range of information and communications technologies, right through from the printed book and other printed materials to television and radio to multimedia computers and the Internet.
2. Technologies to support other teaching and learning processes
The provision of course materials is an important part of the teaching and learning processes in all education and training, whether face-to-face or at a distance. In addition, however, many technologies might support other teaching and learning processes. Some of these can be used generally in any education and training programme, such as whiteboards or overhead projectors, while others might be referred to as specialist technologies, such as woodwork equipment or language laboratories. Again, the range of technologies covered by this group ranges from the very simple, such as pen and paper, to the very sophisticated, such as computerized simulators.
3. Technologies to support management and administration
An important use of technologies, which is often neglected in policy statements, is in support of management and administration of education and training. While some technologies, such as telephones and filing cabinets, have long been used for these purposes, there is a growing understanding that the rapid development of information and communications technologies provide significant opportunities for making savings in this area of education and training and also for leading to more effective management and administration systems.
The TELI policy process establishes a clear commitment to a particular approach to making decisions about using technologies in education and training. This decision-making approach depends strongly on developing a clear understanding of the teaching and learning environment and of the capabilities of different available technologies before examining the likely impact and cost of integrating selected technologies into the teaching and learning environment. The intention of this approach is to guard against technologically driven educational projects, which, as the document itself points out, invariably do not provide effective or sustainable educational solutions. The decision-making framework contained in the TELI Discussion Document poses interesting challenges for an implementation planning process for any technology-enhanced learning strategy, and provides an essential starting point for any investigation of the possibility of using different technologies to support education and training.
Also of relevance in this
discussion document, and the implementation plan which has been developed for it, is the
list of proposed projects, many of which are directly or indirectly related to the
implementation of Curriculum 2005. The most relevant are:
• Supporting curriculum development and delivery in three key areas at
grade eight level. This proposed project is relevant because of potential links that
might develop between such a curriculum development delivery process and a school-focused
technology strategy.
• Professional development of educators in the use of technologies in
education and training. This proposed project could play a role in helping teachers to
be able to make effective use of a wide range of related technologies.
• Establishing structured relationships between the Department of
Education and the major physical infrastructure providers in order to ensure that all
sites of teaching and learning are equipped with basic infrastructure within five years.
This proposed project is very important because the rollout of physical infrastructure is
a necessary prerequisite for many schools to be able to take advantage of
technology-enhanced learning initiatives.
• Establishing a clearing-house of information and web site to support
technology-enhanced learning. This proposed project could establish links with
strategies to develop online services to complement a technology-enhanced learning
project.
• Coordinating an audit of existing technology-enhanced learning
resources at different sites of teaching and learning. This proposed project is
important because it will provide information on the potential access that schools have to
various technologies.
• Developing generic quality assurance and evaluation tools. Tools
developed as part of this process could be used to support ongoing evaluation of a
technology-enhanced learning project.
The Centre for Educational Technology and Distance Education at the Department of Education has also developed a framework of quality standards for distance education, which is also due shortly to be declared as policy. It is also important, because it contains several value statements that can effectively be used to measure the quality of a technology-enhanced learning project. These standards were, of course, designed with distance education programmes and systems in mind, but, as the boundaries between face-to-face and distance education blur rapidly, it is becoming clear that many of them can be applied to any educational programme or system. While all of the standards set out in the framework have potential relevance, those possibly most directly useful are the standards covering course design and course materials. Specifically, the framework endorses the broad TELI approach in the following standards:
‘The choice of media and type of technology is integrated into the curriculum design, and is justified in the light of the aims of the course, the required learning outcomes and learner needs and contexts.’(Department of Education, 1996, A Distance Education Quality Standards Framework for South Africa, Discussion Document Prepared by the Directorate: Distance Education, Media and Technological Services, Department of Education, Pretoria, p. 61)
And:
Distance Education in South Africa (The information contained in this section of the document is based on SAIDE’s work conducted over the past five years, including, but not limited to, various audits of distance education provision in the country)‘Learners are supported to a considerable extent by the provision of a range of opportunities for real two-way communication through the use of various forms of technology for tutoring at a distance, contact tutoring, assignment tutoring, mentoring where appropriate, counselling (both remote and face-to-face), and the stimulation of peer support structures. The need of learners for physical facilities and study resources and participation in decision-making is also taken into account.’(ibid, p. 63)
It is simply not possible to provide a meaningful overview of all educational activity in South Africa. In addition, given the focus on harnessing the capacity of ICTs for social development, much of this activity would not be directly relevant. It is, however, necessary to provide some insight into the transformation challenges that the country faces. Consequently, I have chosen to focus on distance education practices in South Africa, both to illustrate the challenges and some of the arising opportunities. This may seem strange on the face of it, given the topic of this paper. However, in South Africa, most educational initiatives seeking to harness the capacity of ICTs are, in some way or another seeking to draw on distance education and resource-based learning methods. This applies particularly to those initiatives that consciously seek to contribute to the country’s development challenges by responding to the pressures facing its education and training system.
More than ever before, therefore, the policy environment in South Africa, described above, is highly supportive of the development of quality distance education, a stance which proposes that distance education should not be relegated to ‘second-best’ status. In common with other countries around the world, there is a definite shift away from conceptualizing distance education as a separate form of provision. Increasingly, policy statements and research documents in South Africa refer rather to a continuum of educational provision in which ‘distance education’ and ‘face-to-face education’ constitute imaginary poles and on which all educational provision lies. This potentially frees South African educational planners, decision-makers, and curriculum designers to draw from all methods of educational provision at their disposal, and increasingly enables them to combine these methods in ways most attuned to the needs of their learners.
Despite the above-mentioned commitments, however, it is clear that the challenge in South African distance education lies in matching expectations that have been created - often very idealistically - in the policy arena. This begs an obvious question: is distance education equipped to meet the challenges that have been set for it?
The long history of distance
education in South Africa has led to the establishment of educational provision of
significant size. There are four major public providers of distance education programmes
and courses: the University of South Africa - or UNISA - Technikon SA, the Technical
College of South Africa, and Vista University’s Distance Education Campus. In the
public sector, a range of colleges offering teacher education at a distance complements
these institutions. Between them, these institutions have more than 225 000 students.
Added to this is a variety of private sector distance education provision. In 1996, the
five major private providers combined also had over 225 000 enrolments. The recent listing
on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange of Educor - a company which incorporates many of large
and small private distance education providers - points clearly to the tremendous
potential markets for distance education provision in South Africa. Another illustrative
statistic in this regard is that, in 1995, more than a third of South Africa’s
practising teachers were involved in some form of distance education.(Statistics in this
paragraph are drawn from:
- SAIDE, 1997, ‘An Overview of Current Distance Education Provision in South
Africa’ in A Distance Education Quality Standards Framework for South Africa,
Discussion Document Prepared for the Directorate of Distance Education, Media and
Technological Services, pp. 91-116.
- SAIDE, 1996, Teacher Education Offered at a Distance in South Africa: Summary of the
Report for the National Audit, Juta, Cape Town.)
Unfortunately, however, the size of distance education provision has not historically been matched in terms of quality. For example, the Green Paper on Higher Education noted that:
‘Distance and
resource-based learning are well placed for expansion given the current
distance/correspondence infrastructure… At the same time, there are serious concerns
about the efficacy, appropriateness and effectiveness of current distance education
provision. These include:
• Low throughput and completion rates.
• Inadequate learner support.
• A large number of courses with low student enrolment.
• A focus on correspondence-type programmes which are less effective, especially at
entry levels, rather than multimedia and open learning programmes.
• The failure of the current funding formula to encourage the development of a
learner-centred model.’(Department of Education, 1996, Green Paper on Higher
Education Transformation, located at http://www.
polity.org.za/govdocs/green_papers/hegreenp.html)
These observations are corroborated by in-depth audits of distance education in general and of teacher education offered at a distance, both of which spelt out in more detail the problems identified in the Green Paper. These audits and other research processes paint a somewhat bleak picture of the overall quality of distance education provision, as well as of its potential to meet the policy challenges already outlined. In an effort to overcome these historical features of distance education provision, all of the major institutions are, in different ways, working to implement strategies for improving the quality of distance education. While essential, the experience is, however, proving to be painful, difficult, and slow.
Adding to the pressures of transforming existing distance education institutions is the growing interest of traditionally face-to-face institutions, particularly at a higher education level, in using distance education methods as a strategy for coping with dwindling finances and growing demand for places. Almost all universities in the country - as well as many technikons - are exploring how to make use of distance education methods to open access to cost-effective education. They too are facing tremendous challenges in trying to convert potential into practice, and are struggling to find their feet as they move to mixed-mode provision.
Thus, there is no certainty that current distance education practices will necessarily provide the types of solutions anticipated in policy statements. There is a very real possibility that they might simply leave in their wake a legacy of failed initiatives and unfulfilled expectations. This is equally true of those initiatives that seek to harness the capacity of ICTs to expand access to educational opportunities. Although the task is immense, there are many positive developments in South African distance education which, if built upon effectively, can serve to ensure that distance education plays a major role - a role it clearly has to play - in transforming South Africa’s education and training system to open access to high quality educational opportunities.
Importantly, the development of a commonly agreed policy framework - described earlier - for distance education provision in South Africa ensures that the conceptual basis for transformation of distance education and its integration into mainstream provision has never been stronger. The positive results of this are already to be seen in many innovative projects emerging in the distance education arena. Although these projects do not yet amount to systemic transformation, there are very encouraging signs of improved course materials design and development processes yielding higher quality materials. Similarly, the introduction of quality assurance processes is slowly gathering momentum. Perhaps most importantly, most institutions are now working in various ways to implement decentralized tutorial support systems through the establishment of local tutor centres around the country. These are, however, proving to be very expensive to implement. Another significant trend is a growing desire to make greater use of different technologies – including the more recently developed information and communications technologies – in order to create learning environments that make use of an ever wider range of media to support learners. The success of these endeavours will, of course, depend, to large degree, on making appropriate decisions and planning rigorously for their effective implementation.
Of course, in many quarters, there is tremendous resistance to this change, but - very slowly - arguments demonstrating their educational benefits are eroding this resistance. One of the key challenges still remaining, though, is to strengthen the role of more sophisticated planning processes than are generally currently used both to develop new distance education programmes and courses and to transform existing ones. In the absence of such planning, structures and systems developed tend to resemble those used for small-scale, face-to-face educational provision, often with very negative implications for the educational and financial viability of distance education provision.
Allied to these positive trends is the formation of the National Association of Distance Education Organizations of South Africa - or NADEOSA - in 1996. This Association already has over 60 members, including all the major public distance education providers, as well as many traditionally face-to-face institutions and various private providers. It provides an ideal forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences, an intellectual exchange made virtually impossible by the isolation, fragmentation, and authoritarianism instilled during the apartheid era. NADEOSA is in the process of establishing various communication mechanisms, including web sites (See: http://www.saide.org.za/nadeosa/)and newsletters to support the flow of information that will be so vital to successful transformation and development of distance education.
Overall, there is a growing awareness that partnerships and cooperation provide a potential key in meeting the challenges set for distance education in South Africa. There are many examples of developing partnerships in distance education, the largest of which is the initial formation of the Confederation of Open Learning Institutions of South Africa - or COLISA. This confederation is made up of UNISA, Technikon SA, and Vista University, and holds the potential for cooperation in many expensive aspects of distance education, for example, in sharing the set-up and administrative costs of running tutorial support networks. Another example is the establishment of the Free State Higher and Further Education and Training Trust, the purpose of which is to facilitate and expand cooperation with regard to sharing of infrastructure, training of personnel, and cooperative plans of action. Much of the work undertaken by members of the trust has focused explicitly on the use of distance education methods to open access to high quality educational opportunities.
These, and other similar initiatives, indicate clearly that, despite the many problems and challenges facing distance education in South Africa, the picture is not entirely bleak. Equally clearly, though, there are no simple solutions; there still remains a tremendous amount of work to be done, and the road is going to be a long and difficult one compounded by the need to grapple simultaneously with South Africa’s history and the challenges posed by rapidly globalizing markets and relationships. Ultimately, success will depend on seeking out and building on the many positive developments currently taking place.
This context provides a clear basis for identifying key issues on which the success of any effort to integrate ICTs into educational projects will depend. The purpose of articulating these issues is not to submerge such projects in a quagmire of unachievable principles, which effectively prevents action or implementation. Rather, it is an effort to extrapolate essential lessons demonstrated by recent local and international experience in order to ensure that future projects build on this experience rather than repeating costly and educationally pointless exercises. Although it runs the risk of becoming over-used, a Tony Bates quotation helps to drive the point home:
the history of education is littered with the corpses of technology-based projects that were killed because of the high operating costs, problems of adaptation to local conditions, lack of skilled personnel to operate the technologies, and lack of effectiveness.(Bates, A.W. 1991, "Media and Two-Way Communication in Distance Education" in Distance Education: A Developing Method, Norwegian State Institution for Distance Education/NKI, p. 1)
Despite the wealth of experiences both locally and from around the world on which this country can draw in planning and implementing technology-enhanced learning, it appears that we are repeating many of the mistakes that have been made in such initiatives. Thus, South Africa does not yet appear to be ‘leapfrogging’ mistakes made around the world as was hoped would happen, but seems rather to be emulating those mistakes.
Rationale for distance education and resource-based learningAs has been pointed out above, most educational initiatives seeking to harness the capacity of ICTs are, in some way or another seeking to draw on distance education and resource-based learning methods. For this reason, it is worth reflecting briefly on the rationale for exploring resource-based learning and distance education methods. Whether consciously or unconsciously, attempts to make use of distance education methods and resource-based learning by various educators in South Africa over the past few years have been driven by a desire to build on some or all of the following lessons emerging from the respective histories of distance education and resource-based learning:(It would, of course, be näive to believe that the motivations of all educators introducing resource-based learning and distance education methods are educationally driven. Many organizations and individuals in South Africa are using certain distance education methods and cheap versions of resource-based learning to increase student numbers and/or income with little or no concern for impact on the quality of that educational provision)
1. Distance Education
1.1. Providing access to students who would - either because of work commitments, geographical distance, or poor quality or inadequate prior learning experiences - be denied access to traditional, full-time face-to-face education opportunities.
1.2. Seeking to expand access to educational provision to significantly larger numbers of learners.
1.3. Shifting patterns of expenditure to achieve economies of scale by amortizing identified costs (particularly investments in course design and development and in effective administrative systems) over time and large student numbers.2. Resource-Based Learning
2.1. Breaking down the traditional notion that a teacher talking to mostly passive students is the most effective strategy for communicating curriculum.
2.2. Directing a significantly larger proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources, as a strategy for building and assuring the quality of educational provision.
2.3. Implementing strategies to shift the role of the educator. Draft government policy statements on the use of technologies in education and training summarize this changing role as follows:
• They will become facilitators and managers of learning in situations where they are no longer the source of all knowledge.
• They will plan, negotiate for, and manage the integration of learning in formal institutions, in the workplace, and in communities.
• Many educators may spend a considerable proportion of their workloads contributing to the preparation of courseware.
• Many will interact with learners at a distance through any one, or any combinations, of a variety of media (of which real-time face to face interaction is only one of many possibilities).
• Preparation, management, and logistics will vary greatly between the following modes of communication:• interaction with learners;
• presentation of one way television broadcast;
• video conference that hooks up a number of remote sites;
• written response to a learner’s assignment; and
• face to face facilitation.It will be essential that educators design and administer complicated, increasingly computer-based record-keeping systems that keep track of learners’ progress through their individual learning pathways, pathways that reflect individual variations in learning content, learning sequence, learning strategies, the learning resources, media and technologies chosen to support them, and the pace of learning.
Increasing proportions of educators’ work will involve them as members of teams to which they will contribute only some of the required expertise, and of which they will not necessarily be the leaders, managers, or coordinators.
2.4. Investigating the potential that the integration of new educational technologies into teaching and learning environments has for supporting, improving, or enhancing those environments.
If they are to be successful, projects seeking to integrate the use of ICTs into education and training effectively will need to build on these lessons. Many of them arise in the issues identified below.
Technologically-Driven Educational Solutions do not WorkAs the range and complexity of technologies available to support education and training rapidly expands, the reality that technologically-driven educational solutions do not work has almost been repeated to the point that it has become a cliché. Despite this, however, the continued failure of technology-based projects (many of which were based in South Africa) has demonstrated clearly both how valid this principle remains and how difficult it is to implement in practice. As was noted in the TELI Report, when examining trends in the use of technologies in education and training in South Africa:
In most cases, decisions about what technology to use in the learning environment were made on the basis of the technological preference, rather than by determining which technology was most suitable for the learning objective.(Ministerial Committee for Development Work on the Role of Technology that will Support and Enhance Learning, 1996,Pretoria, p. 39)
Consequently, the following pointers are worth taking into consideration.
Educational principles and issues have to form the foundation of decisions about what technologies to use and how. On the face of it, this seems to be contradictory to the notion of establishing a project that is based on using particular technologies to support teacher education. Indeed, there has long been an apparent tension between the agendas of technology providers and good educators, which has often resulted in failed educational initiatives. Technology providers have tended to focus on ‘getting things done’ and fast rollout of plans, while good educators, realizing the contextual and immensely complicated nature of education, have tended to implement slowly and thoroughly, continually reflecting on the quality of what they have done. However, it is possible to exploit the creative possibilities of this tension, using them effectively to overcome weaknesses inherent in different approaches.Technologies can either be used as a catalyst for transformation or as a mechanism for maintaining the status quoAn effective way of achieving this is to work closely with identified educators who have built up a reputation for providing high quality education, using this base from which to explore possible roles for the technologies available(More information about the technologies themselves is contained in the description of the Pilot Project itself). In this way, there is a far greater likelihood - but obviously still no guarantee - that educational principles and issues will form the foundation of decisions made, even though exploration of the potential of particular technologies provides the ostensible starting point. In doing this, it remains essential to bear in mind that, although principles can quickly be reduced to cliché or jargon, it is necessary to take very seriously the difficulty of implementing idealistic educational principles in practice.
Underestimating the difficulties in successfully implementing principles such as those which form the basis of South Africa’s white paper on education and training will surely lead to repetition of mistakes made elsewhere. Simultaneously, however, these principles do provide a solid basis for taking forward the effective transformation of South Africa’s education and training system. Thus, simply ignoring the principles when they prove difficult to implement is also not a solution. Unfortunately, the only solution is to go through rigorous, thorough processes of planning, implementing, and evaluating initiatives in a sustained effort to give expression to the educational principles fundamental to current South African educational policy.
Before making any contractual commitment, test the viability of using the particular technology or technologies for the intended educational purposes by exploring its potential in the chosen area with the best available educators. These educators should, for preference, come from a work environment that will serve to guarantee that relevant educational needs, contexts, and principles - and not the attractions of the technology - will form the basis for their exploration.
Never take marketing jargon at face value. Always test claims made about technologies and their ability to perform certain educational functions - as well as the ability of a technology provider to deliver according to promise - before assuming their validity. Do not get locked into contractual arrangements that force commitment to a particular technological solution for an extended period. In all cases, examine ways to ‘disinvest’ in particular technological choices when they are proving ineffective. Often, political pressure, commitments made up front, and fear of failure cause people to respond to failed use of technologies in education by pouring even more money into a failed initiative. The result of this is generally worse education and greater resource wastage. Ensure that the choice of technology does not lead to imbalances in fixed and variable costs. As has been indicated above, it can make educational and financial sense to direct significantly larger proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources. Similarly, the history of distance education has demonstrated is that it is possible to shift patterns of expenditure to achieve economies of scale by amortizing identified costs over time and large student numbers. Often, however, the choice of technologies militates against such use of money, particularly when one intends using expensive technologies such as satellite broadcasting. This can result in very expensive, but educationally ineffective, provision of learning opportunities.(There are examples in South Africa of attempts to use satellite technology where the expense of investing in physical infrastructure and equipment, together with the high costs of broadcasting, have encouraged use of the technology simply to broadcast live lectures. On the face of it, this makes financial sense, as it avoids the expense of producing high quality video material. In South Africa, where the legacy of fundamental pedagogics and the mistaken, teacher-centred notion of education as a process of transmitting information form educators to mostly passive learners, it is also appealing to many people who grew up with this as their only experience of education. When systems based on this logic have become operational, two features are notable. First, the failure of the system to provide an interactive learning environment - even where feedback to the central studio is possible - leads to the introduction of local support in the form of (often poorly prepared) tutors who are present throughout broadcasts. This leaves one with an expensive satellite system and an equally expensive face-to-face system running in parallel. Second, there is a notable absence of fixed investment in educational resources or administrative and management systems that can provide the basis for future programmes. The most common results of this are educational failure, resource wastage, and learner and educator disillusionment)Regardless of technological choice (often influenced by intersecting educational, financial, social, political, and economic interests), ensure that sufficient time for planning, designing, and developing an effective educational programme is scheduled. This time should not mistakenly be equated with calendar time. Rather, it should be calculated in terms of person time. For example, it is no use setting aside a year to plan and develop a course if there are only one or two people working part-time allocated to this task.
Transforming Educational Practice
Educational discussions about the potential role of new technologies - most recently
fuelled by the rapid development of information and communications technologies of many
kinds - have an undeniable ability to generate tremendous interest, enthusiasm, and
excitement. This can be seen, for example, in the dominance of technology as a theme at
educational conferences around the world over the past five years. If harnessed
effectively, there is a distinct possibility that this might be a very powerful catalyst
for transforming dominant education practices, particularly if exploration of possible
roles for such technologies is based on cognisance of the points raised above. The nature
of a transformed education system is documented in detail in recent policy and research
documents, as has been outlined above. However, a good example of how this possibility can
be exploited is in examining ways in which to transform the role of the educator from a
teacher to a manager or facilitator of the learning process, in ways that have been
described above. This task is sometimes made easier because information and communications
technologies have all but eroded the myth of the teacher as the source of all knowledge.
Unfortunately, though, the majority of uses of technologies, both old and new, still tends to be to enhance the role of the traditional teacher, using new gimmicks as ‘high-tech chalk’. The assumption seems to be that the ‘talk and chalk’ approach is still the most effective way of organizing educational opportunities and that a key function of technologies should be either to enable teachers to do this better or to make his or her lecture available to more students at one time. This trend points clearly to the fact that, despite an often stated commitment to the principle of learner-centredness, attention to the needs and demands of learners is absent from the majority of technology-enhanced learning initiatives, as is any sustained attempt to use learners to construct their own curricula and to participate actively in designing solutions to their learning needs.
The dominant approach still tends to be to consider learners as empty vessels to which knowledge must be transmitted, in a largely one-way process of communication, by the teacher. Using this as a starting point, there seemed also to be an unproblematized assumption that the use of technologies, and particularly of newer technologies, is a valuable exercise in itself. In many examples, there is little questioning of the content being provided using these technologies and of how they could most constructively be used to enhance this provision educationally. There is often very little rigorous effort to match the choice of technologies to the learning outcomes and processes of courses and programmes. There also seems, in many cases, to be a lack of sophistication in mixing media and technologies to achieve the learning objectives of courses and programmes.
Creating Scaleable Teaching and Learning ModelsImportantly, though, this points to the importance of ensuring that projects integrating the use of ICTs into education and training seek to create learning environments wherein exploration of educational roles for the technologies available can function as a catalyst for effective educational transformation and for building high quality education. It is also necessary – particularly given the scale of particular educational problems and backlogs - to focus on developing teaching and learning models that can be taken to scale cost-effectively. Many Pilot Projects owe whatever success they have to intervention by enthusiastic individuals - who are also often very good educators - determined to make the Pilot succeed. This is laudable, but can establish teaching and learning models that are not workable on a large-scale when this type of individual intervention is unable to compensate for weaknesses in such models.
The Gap Between Rich and PoorPractical examples of uses of new technologies tend to reinforce the notion that they entrench this gap rather than demonstrating practical solutions to the problem. This is because, in general, they depend on students having access to the necessary facilities (sometimes even in the home) rather than being based on an assumption that students’ circumstances might prevent them from having access to any facilities. This should not be regarded as criticism of the initiatives, most of which are taking place in developed countries, where such assumptions are, in all likelihood, quite reasonable. What they do indicate, however, is that people and countries with large resource bases are much better placed to take advantage of the educational benefits arising from using new technologies in teaching and learning than are people and countries with few resources. This is not an easy problem to solve, but it suggests quite clearly that developing countries cannot solve it by pretending that it does not exist. Rather, it is a problem that South Africa has to work through in order to ensure that access to new technologies is opened up to marginalized communities in innovative and cost-effective ways. Above all, it needs to be realized that not tackling the problem head on is likely to be an act of perpetuating economic, and educational, marginalization.
In acknowledgement of these problems, Bates referred - in a keynote address to the Educational Technology 2000 conference held in Singapore in 1996 - to different types of partnerships which might be established between institutions from developing and developed countries and to investment by poorer countries in new technologies through the establishment of hubs located in strategic positions. Conceived and implemented properly, these could form the basis for providing marginalized communities with access to new technologies in cost-effective, and educationally useful, ways. These are proposals of particular relevance to the South African context, and much energy has already gone into exploring the possibilities of developing a network of community centres which might function as the strategically placed hubs referred to above. The TELI Report, for example, refers to the potential role of a network of community centres and to the need for the Department of Education to play a leading role in coordinating its development. This observation should, however, be tempered with comments on the difficulties of establishing community-oriented structures in South Africa provided in the next point.
Establishing new structures in South African communities is a long and difficult processIt becomes immediately apparent on conducting even perfunctory research into the establishment of new structures in communities that this is inevitably a long and difficult process if it is to yield effective and sustainable results. Mark Napier, for example, notes that
the classic example of ignoring [principles of consensus and existing patterns of use] and the ideas of accessibility, efficiency and sustainability, can be seen very near to Manguzi. The new community centre and stadium located 12km west of Manguzi sit in splendid isolation. Until substantial development takes place at that location, these very valuable and much needed community facilities are likely to remain non-viable and unused.(Napier, M. 1997, Summary Recommendation for Siting and Design of CSIR/MCP IT Centre at Manguzi, Pretoria, CSIR Division of Building Technology, p. 3)
Similarly, a stadium in Soshanguve stands empty and unused, stripped of its resources(Example taken from interview with Shelagh Nation and Kirstin van Vuuren of the CSIR, 13 November, 1997). These are both examples of community structures that were erected without going through necessary processes.
Various issues arise on
examination of these and other examples of attempts to establish new community structures.
Some are listed below, in no particular order of significance:
• Community-oriented processes work according to principles of
consensus, and not of democracy.
• There is no point in establishing new community structures until
everyone relevant is involved in the process. This applies from the outset, starting with
the process of needs analysis.
• There is tremendous difficulty in finding the right people with
whom to discuss potential projects, and further difficulty in getting these people to talk
to each other. If this is not done, however, the success of the project may be seriously
jeopardized.
• Attempts to develop ‘models’ for community structures
have generally not worked successfully. Developing a dynamic ‘shopping list’ of
options, from which communities are able to select those most relevant to their needs,
tends to work more successfully.
• The issue of sustainability of structures is crucial. Hill and
Bowen suggest that there are four components to sustainability; social, economic,
biophysical, and technical.(Hill, R.C. & Bowen, P.A. 1997, ‘Sustainable
Construction’ in Green File March/April 1997, pp. 14-15)
• Establishing community structures from scratch is a
time-consuming and lengthy process if it is to be done correctly. It is simply not
possible to complete projects of this nature in the space of a few months.
Drawing on these, it is possible
to identify key principles on which the establishment of new community structures - of any
kind - need to be based. They are as follows:
• The establishment of new community structures must begin with a
thorough needs or function analysis, which ought to identify possible functions for the
structure in relation to business opportunities, provision of information and related
services, creating access to technologies, and opening up educational opportunities.
• This needs or function analysis must be accompanied by in-depth
process analysis, wherein a flexible process of establishing a new community structure is
clearly articulated.
• Both of the above analyses will have to involve all of the
relevant community players from the outset if the project is to stand any chance of
success.
• Identifying the right community people with whom to begin
negotiations is critical to the success of the project. Effort needs to be made to ensure
that people do in fact represent those aspects of the community that they claim to
represent and that they maintain ongoing communication with their constituency.
• A dynamic ‘shopping list’ of options - rather than
‘models’ - is required when planning new community structures of any kind.
• Strategies for social, economic, biophysical, and technical
sustainability of the community structure are paramount will need to be developed from the
outset
• Identifying the correct location for a community structure, based
on accessibility and convenience, is essential to the success and sustainability of the
initiative.
• Clear management responsibility and the development of thorough
and effective administrative structures and processes will be necessary to ensure the
success of the initiative.
• Infrastructure developed should be designed in a way that allows
flexibility of options for its future use.
• The agency or agencies engaging specific communities to
investigate the viability of establishing community structures must be committed to
delivery once engagement begins (to prevent disillusionment and unfulfilled expectations).
Based on the above, it is often prudent not to include attempts to build new structure from scratch, using vacant land, into educational projects seeking to harness the potential of ICTs (although many have gone this route in South Africa). Rather, one might seek to link up with an existing community structure, where much of the above-mentioned work has already been done.
High quality courses and learning resources are crucial to the success of technology-enhanced learning initiatives.The TELI Report makes the observation that:
experience from around the world indicates that introducing technological hardware into education and training is generally the easiest part of the process, and often ends up being the cheapest in the long term. The development of course materials to be used with such technologies, whether they be printed resources, video cassettes, or computer-based resources, is a far more costly and time-consuming process, and is also an ongoing one.(Ministerial Committee for Development Work on the Role of Technology that will Support and Enhance Learning, 1996, Technology-Enhanced Learning Investigation in South Africa, p. 96)
Based on this, it went on to assert that:
The successful introduction of technologies into teaching and learning environments depends on high quality course materials. Unfortunately, however, inadequate attention, time, and money are generally devoted to the design and development of such course materials. In order to change this, it is necessary to redirect significant funds to course design and development processes.(ibid, p. 105)
Unfortunately, in many cases where technologies are being used to support or enhance learning, high quality learning materials are conspicuous by their absence. Often, the use of technologies is not accompanied by any materials development processes at all. This is particularly strange because it seems that this very traditional approach to using technologies to enhance learning adds cost to the teaching and learning process without any particular benefits.
In good distance learning, the course, not the teacher, teaches the course. For this to happen successfully, it must be very much more than a package of study materials. No matter how sophisticated it may be, a study package is still no more than a well-presented combination of print, visuals, experiment kits, audio tapes, perhaps, video tapes, and computer-based resources. The course is the structure of learning that is designed into those materials. It has five basic elements. First, it contains conceptual pathways to mastery of its knowledge, conceptualizing skills and practical abilities. Second, it contains pedagogical strategies for helping the learner find his or her way through these pathways. This involves use of supportive and motivating elements like availability of tutor support that is part of the structured pathways. Physical resources for learning (places in which to meet, study, and practice talking about the subject matter of the courses) must be available. As with tutor support, they need to be both freely available and their use planned into the course as the student unfolds it. Third, both summative and formative assessment should be integral to the learning process. That is, assessment cannot be ‘tacked-on’ to the end of a course. It should not simply be a test that merely confirms what the student now knows and does not know. It must validly test the student’s achievement of all the objectives of the course, and these will not have been expressed merely in terms of the knowledge the course will impart. Usually, the assessment will be designed to assist in developing the understanding for which the course aims. Fourth, the materials and indeed the whole presentation of the course, must excite, engage, and reward the student. Fifth, it must be designed to develop and sustain independence of thought and the capacity for continued self-education.
The key element in the strategy of course design is that it should be student-centred. That is, it should be designed to meet the personal, practical, intellectual, and learning style needs of the student rather than the organizational requirements of the institution or its staff. The course design and development model provided in figure three locates the development of materials within a broader process of course design and development.
(View figure three: Course design and development)
Education is a process of engagement between two groups of people, learners and educators. If either is not equipped to engage effectively, it is unlikely to succeed.Often, in technology-enhanced learning initiatives, people tend to lose sight of the fact that, regardless if the technologies used to support communication or resource provision, education remains - at its most fundamental - a process of engagement between two groups of people: learners and educators. This is very often seen, for example, in writing about educational technology, where people regularly fall into the trap of attributing human capabilities to certain technologies (for example, suggesting that ‘the computer provides learning opportunities’ or labelling a particular technology as ‘interactive’). In such writing, educators can easily be forgiven for developing a concern that some educational technologists are intent on removing educators from the educational process. Similarly, traditional, teacher-centred approaches to education, which focus primarily on the needs and concerns of educators and educational institutions, have often been characterized by a marked absence of any reference to learners. Thus, in writing where the technologies are described as the ‘educator’ - but paradoxically the traditional teacher-centred philosophy persists - one can easily be left with anomalous descriptions of education that void of real people.
To succeed, the educational projects seeking to harness the potential of ICTs will have to focus clearly on ensuring that both educators and learners are equipped to engage effectively in the teaching and learning that takes place. As the TELI Report notes,
It is essential to develop the human capacity required for technologies to be used effectively in education and training. Of course, this involves the professional development of a range of people organizing and offering educational opportunities, including educators, managers, administrators, and technicians. Importantly, however, it also involves developing the capacity of learners to be able to understand and use technologies, both in the learning environment and beyond it, and to be able to reflect critically on their use of different technologies.(ibid, pp. 95-96)
It is vital to incorporate clear strategies to ensure that both educators and learners are equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, and competencies to engage effectively in any educational project using ICTs. Ideally, these strategies should focus also on ensuring that their ability to use the technologies that they come into contact with during a project extends beyond the scope of the project itself. The TELI Report proposes various professional development initiatives for both educators and learners that might be used as a base for establishing appropriate strategies.
Problematic partnerships are worse than no partnershipThe above observation is not a
recommendation for abandoning partnerships. Rather, it points the way to identifying
crucial ingredients for successful partnership. Amongst others, these would include:
• Building partnerships between organizations and individuals with
broadly similar objectives. This does not imply that there is no room for
differences of opinion or approach to solving problems. Indeed, accommodating difference
effectively within partnerships can create much better education. However, when
philosophies or objectives are antithetical, partnership is very unlikely to work well.
• Identifying clearly the contributions of each partner
- and their capacity to deliver accordingly - before beginning work.
• Developing clear, commonly agreed principles for the
operation of the partnership and strategies for dealing effectively - without
creating hostility - with partners who fail to adhere to these principles. Examples might
include:
• Assign responsibility for tasks to people and not organizations. In this respect, it is worth differentiating between responsibility ensuring a task is completed and actually completing the task. A person assigned responsibility for completing a task should be given the freedom to harness the capacity of other members of the partnership in completing the task, but ultimately remains responsible for ensuring that it is completed according to deadline.
• Ensure transparency by circulating all information to all partners, taking advantage of the functionality provided by e-mail. This is a principle easily adopted but much more difficult to implement. This is particularly so in South Africa, where withholding information is still erroneously regarded as a strategy for gaining competitive advantage. Similarly, authoritarian management styles tend to encourage a mentality of only providing information on a ‘need to know’ basis, adjusted according to people’s relative position within an organization.
• Agree that only statements made to all partners - either in appropriate meetings or via e-mail - are regarded as valid (with a view to minimizing the influence of rumours and ‘closed door’ decision-making processes).
• Assume collective responsibility for all decisions taken. This will naturally only be possible if all partners adhere to the above two principles.
• Issue invitations to meetings to all members of the partnership. Where a meeting cannot include one or more members, notification about the meeting should still be given, together with an explanation as to why it is not an open meeting.
• Record the outcomes of all key meetings.
• Appoint a good facilitator (either from within or outside of the partnership) to manage key processes.
• Appoint a good manager - accepted by all parties - from within the partnership to manage the partnership and to ensure that all partners adhere to the above principles.
Developing clear, commonly agreed strategies to ask partners to leave or to enable them to withdraw from the partnership. This might be necessary if the partnership comes to deviate too far from a partner’s own objectives or principles. Perhaps more importantly, it may become necessary in the event of non-delivery by one or more partners. Of course, a partnership should be binding enough not to allow withdrawal simply according to whim and to prevent unfair marginalization of partners. Nevertheless, it would similarly be naïve to assume that partnerships will necessarily run smoothly and that there will be no need to dissolve or change the nature of the partnership prior to completion of tasks.(The role of Africa Growth Network (AGN) within the alliance provides a clear case in point in this regard)
Integrate Quality Assurance into Projects from the Planning PhaseInternationally, there is growing recognition that one of the most effective ways of ensuring the continual improvement of educational provision is through the establishment of sustainable internal quality assurance mechanisms. Once up and running, these mechanisms can lead to effective self-improving systems within institutions and educational programmes. They can also function as ongoing motivation and professional development for staff. Of course, as with all such mechanisms, there is no guarantee that their implementation will lead to self-improving systems. Nor can such internal mechanisms fulfil all evaluation functions within an institution or programme. Ultimately, success is dependent on the integrity and commitment of the people who implement and participate in quality assurance processes and on their ability to select processes and evaluation strategies appropriate to the context of the institution or programme in which they are working.
However, the term ‘quality assurance’ is sometimes used rather loosely, and it might be as well to make a working definition in relation to similar terms in the current ‘quality debate’(The description of terms provided below was originally developed by Tessa Welch of SAIDE). A first distinction can be made between ‘quality control’ and ‘quality assurance’. Quality control is a retrospective process, checking after the work has been done to see if it has been up to standard. Conversely, quality assurance is intended to anticipate problems that might occur, so that quality controllers end up with very little to reject. As is pointed out in the section on quality assurance in Teacher Education offered at a Distance in South Africa, the dominant mode in South African education is quality control.
A second distinction can be made between quality assurance and Total Quality Management (TQM). Quality assurance focuses on processes and procedures set in place to ensure that things will go right rather than wrong. As Bernadette Robinson(Robinson, B. 1994, ‘Assuring Quality in Open and Distance Learning’ in Lockwood, F. (ed). Materials Production in Open and Distance Learning, London, Paul Chapman, p. 187) puts it, quality assurance is ‘a set of activities that an organisation undertakes to ensure that standards are specified and reached consistently for a product or service’. If Total Quality Management is introduced, there will be not only quality assurance, but also retrospective quality control, and in addition, a further level of quality assessment, the monitoring, evaluation, and audit of all of the quality systems within an organization. TQM also needs to consider the staff - appointing quality staff and ensuring their commitment and continuous self-improvement.
Quality assurance focuses on processes and procedures that cannot, in themselves, ensure quality. The standards set, and the notions of quality upon which such standards are based, are crucial. Especially in education, it is dangerous to reduce quality assurance to a mechanistic process, which is not nurtured and challenged by vigorous debate on the aims of education.
While attention to managing processes and procedures is essential for assuring quality in Open and Distance Learning, staff also need a clear institutional vision of what constitutes good quality learning, what conditions foster it, and how to assess it.(Robinson, B. 1995. ‘The Management of Quality in Open and Distance Learning’, a paper presented at the VIII Annual Conference, Structure and Management of Open Learning Systems, New Delhi: Conference Papers, vol. 1, p.107)
Although processes and procedures are the focus, these need to be based on a negotiated and dynamic set of values and seen in a particular context. Processes and procedures must be conducive to quality of performance by all involved. They are not controls or judgements external to that performance. They can be viewed as the means by which the members of an institution ensure that it becomes a learning organization.(Argyris, C and Schon, D. 1978, Organisational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective, Reading, Mass., Addison Wesley) This then prepares the organization for any externally initiated quality evaluation.
Projects seeking to harness the
potential of ICTs for educational purposes would be well advised to implement quality
assurance processes from the outset. Furthermore, an important component of quality
assurance is formative and summative evaluation of the Pilot Project. The TELI Report,
however, noted that most technology-enhanced learning initiatives have tended to add
‘on their evaluation at the end of the process instead of building it in from the
beginning. This ultimately limited the usefulness of the evaluations’(Ministerial
Committee for Development Work on the Role of Technology that will Support and Enhance
Learning, 1996, Technology-Enhanced Learning Investigation in South Africa, p. 39).
It went on to propose the following guiding principle: ‘Integrate
evaluation and impact assessment into the learning system from the start, and adopt a
learning orientation to the use of technology in education and training’(ibid, p. 58).
This principle is elaborated as follows:
• A great deal can be learnt from reflection on the successes and
the failures of the means which people have used to make learning and teaching more
effective. However, unless an enquiring approach is adopted to the use of new technologies
in the learning environment, few lessons will be learnt. This involves understanding
clearly what results are expected from the use of one or another technology, and setting
out to measure the impact of that strategy.
• A related guideline here concerns the importance of not working
in isolation. By linking up with other institutions, organizations and programmes, people
can learn a great deal from each other and so avoid mistakes which have already been made.
Partnerships between urban and rural institutions are particularly important because of
the very different conditions under which learning is taking place, and the varied ways in
which technology can enhance learning in those different contexts.(ibid, p. 58)
The TELI Report expressed commitment to a particular approach to making decisions about how to integrate technologies into education and training. This approach applies to the integration of any technology into a teaching and learning environment. It is, however, particularly relevant to the integration of ICTs into education and training, because the danger of implementing technologically driven projects is so much higher, given the novelty value of the technologies. This section has been placed last, because it will need to integrate all of the above issues.
Bates suggests that
‘decision making should be based on an analysis of questions that each institution
needs to ask’(Bates, A. 1995, Technology, Open Learning and Distance Education,
London, Routledge, p. 1). He groups these questions under the following criteria:
• Access: how accessible is a particular technology for learners? How flexible is it
for a particular target group?
• Costs: what is the cost structure of each technology? What is the unit cost per
learner?
• Teaching and learning: what kinds of learning are needed? What instructional
approaches will best meet these needs? What are the best technologies for supporting this
teaching and learning?
• Interactivity and user-friendliness: what kind of interaction does this technology
enable? How easy is it to use?
• Organisational issues: what are the organisational requirements, and the barriers
to be removed, before this technology can be used successfully? What changes in
organisation need to be made?
• Novelty: how new is this technology?
• Speed: how quickly can courses be mounted with this technology? How quickly can
materials be changed?(ibid, pp. 1-2)
The TELI Report contains a detailed decision-making framework designed to assist processes of deciding which technologies to use, and how best to use them. The need to answer the types of questions posed by Bates has been used as a starting point for developing this decision-making framework, although the tool itself uses a very different set of organizing principles. The tool itself is divided into various modules, each of which has been designed as a self-contained unit. This has been done to allow different starting points for people, depending on their needs.
The decision-making framework consists of four modules. Each will be discussed in turn, although it should be stressed that this does not represent a chronological order in which the modules should be completed.
Teaching and Learning Environment ModuleIn terms of Bates’s categories outlined above, this module covers several of the teaching and learning issues and covers a broad range of organizational issues. Consequently, it will develop an understanding of the teaching and learning environment essential for calculating costs.
Figure four is a graphical representation of the teaching and learning environment; it can be applied to any teaching and learning context using any methods of educational provision. Each element is described in detail.
(View figure four: The learning and teaching environment )
Learners
The educational provider has been included last in this description because the description of the educational provider will depend very much on the descriptions of the other elements of the teaching and learning environment.
Technologies ModuleIn terms of Bates’s categories outlined above, this module answers questions on the novelty, and speed of technologies. In addition, however, it provides information essential to answering questions about access to and the costs, and interactivty and user-friendliness of technologies.
Figure five indicates where decision about the use of technologies will need to be taken, by indicating what the place of technologies within the teaching and learning environment is. Thus, reading the Technologies Module should be done with this figure in mind.
(View figure five: integrating technologies into the teaching and learning environment)
Module on Integrating Technologies
into the Teaching and Learning Environment
The purpose of this module is to take decision-makers through a set of questions which
will help them to understand the implications of introducing certain technologies into the
teaching and learning environment (represented graphically in figure five). The ability to
develop useful answers to the questions will depend in part on accessing information about
particular technologies using the Technologies Module. In addition, however, several of
the answers will depend very much on the needs and circumstances of the educational
provider and of the learners, as well as on the specifics of chosen teaching and learning
sites. Consequently, the module also depends very much on developing a clear understanding
of the teaching and learning environment using the Teaching and Learning Environment
Module. The answers to the questions posed in this module should lead to a refined
understanding of the teaching and learning environment when certain technologies are used
to enhance it.
In terms of Bates’s categories outlined above, this module will answer questions relating to access to and the costs and interactivty and user-friendliness of technologies.
Costing ModuleMost satellite-based educational initiatives have sought to build on a key strength of satellite technology, namely its accessibility. The basic premise is that satellite broadcasting, by virtue of its large footprints, can reach potentially more people, including those people in remote areas for whom terrestrial television infrastructure is not likely to be expanded in the short to medium term. However, there are examples in South Africa of attempts to use satellite technology where the expense of investing in physical infrastructure and equipment, together with the high costs of broadcasting, have encouraged use of the technology simply to broadcast live lectures.
On the face of it, this makes financial sense, as it avoids the expense of producing high quality video material. In South Africa, where the legacy of fundamental pedagogics and the mistaken, teacher-centred notion of education as a process of transmitting information form educators to mostly passive learners, it is also appealing to many people who grew up with this as their only experience of education. The assumption seems to be that the ‘talk and chalk’ approach is still the most effective way of organizing educational opportunities and that a key function of technologies should be either to enable teachers to do this better or to make his or her lecture available to more students at one time. When systems based on this logic have become operational, two features are notable. First, the failure of the system to provide an interactive learning environment - even where feedback to the central studio is possible - leads to the introduction of local support in the form of (often poorly prepared) tutors who are present throughout broadcasts. This leaves one with an expensive satellite system and an equally expensive face-to-face system running in parallel. Second, there is a notable absence of fixed investment in educational resources or administrative and management systems that can provide the basis for future courses or programmes, thus effectively preventing any possibility of amortizing the costs of educational provision over time and large student numbers. Furthermore, the systems often fall prey to the main educational weaknesses of television broadcasting:
• learners are required to
gather at a certain place (where a television is) at a certain time;
• learners have no control over the pacing of the broadcast;
• broadcasts tend to encourage passivity amongst learners (and strategies employed to
overcome this problem inevitably start generating significant additional cost, usually
leading to serious financial inefficiency);
• integrating other media with video broadcast live is very difficult to achieve,
and, when applied, very often leads to inefficient use of both broadcast technology (an
example of this might be leaving ‘dead’ spaces to allow students to consult a
printed resource) and the medium (this type of integration most often leads to quite
boring television); and
• broadcasts tend to be organized in time packages that are much longer than the time
an average student is able to concentrate fully on the television screen.
The most common results of this are educational failure, resource wastage, and learner and educator disillusionment. Tony Bates notes that:
‘The history of education is littered with the corpses of technology-based projects that were killed because of the high operating costs, problems of adaptation to local conditions, lack of skilled personnel to operate the technologies, and lack of effectiveness.’(Bates, A.W. 1991, "Media and Two-Way Communication in Distance Education" in Distance Education: A Developing Method, Norwegian State Institution for Distance Education/NKI, p. 1)
One would be forgiven for thinking that he had been monitoring examples of the use of satellite technology in South African education and training when making this observation. Despite the wealth of experiences both locally and from around the world on which this country can draw in planning and implementing technology-enhanced learning, it appears that we are repeating many of the mistakes that have been made in such initiatives. Thus, South Africa does not yet appear to be ‘leapfrogging’ mistakes made around the world as was hoped would happen, but seems rather to be emulating those mistakes.
Where Does Satellite Technology Have a Role to Play?This does not mean that there is no role for satellite technology in South African education and training. On the contrary, there are areas where the use of satellite technology warrants further exploration. In particular, ‘hybrid’ use of Internet and satellite technologies has the potential to combine the educational potential of each technology, and offers some exciting educational possibilities. To work successfully, though, it does demand a complete revision of traditional teaching and learning models, traditional roles for teachers, and traditional conceptions of teaching and learning sites, demands that many South African educators might currently find almost impossible to fulfil.
Nevertheless, in areas where creativity in educational planning and implementation is possible, satellite can be used as a very powerful distribution mechanism for Internet-based resources. It overcomes many of the bandwidth problems inherent in many digital delivery systems (such as telephone access to the Internet) as well as problems inherent in physical delivery systems (for example, using the postal system to deliver CD-ROMs). For example, because information is downloaded directly to a local server, users are spared the anguish of waiting for graphics and other large pieces of data to download over communication lines with limited bandwidth (such as telephone lines). With respect to Web access, aspects of this can be automated by ‘subscribing’ to particular sites, which can then be downloaded nightly for access by users the following day. In addition, the return loop - provided either by telephone lines or, as satellite cellular telephony expands, also by satellite - allows users much greater flexibility, particularly in terms of being able to browse the World Wide Web and make use of e-mail and associated Internet communications protocols.
An additional strength of such a system is that it can function as a one-way resource delivery system where electricity and telephone lines are not available. A network can function effectively using solar power, while distribution of information using satellite technology eliminates the need for telephone lines to access digital data. Unfortunately, this does eliminate a particular strength of the Internet, namely the ability to interact using web browsers and e-mail. Nevertheless, it remains a potentially powerful and - if taken to scale - cost-effective resource distribution mechanism.
Finally, such a system might quite conceivably be established either as a local area or wide area network. This enhances flexibility even further. For example, many teacher centres are located in close proximity to an identified cluster of schools (a direction many provinces currently appear to be taking to improve efficiency of resource use). By establishing a resource distribution base at a teacher centre, it could then be possible to create a network amongst the schools that this centre was set up to serve. This notion of clustering schools around centres and using wide area networks to expand computer access has tremendous long-term potential as a strategy for overcoming resource shortages in many areas.
Of course, all of this functionality carries a heavy price. For the vast majority of educational providers and learners, the start-up costs incurred in taking advantage of such technological flexibility are simply unaffordable, a problem worsened by the necessity for up-front investment in high quality resource development. Slowly, these constraints are starting to fall away, as the costs of key technologies fall significantly and as the use of satellite communication increases. A good example of the latter is the recent introduction of satellite technology to support cellular telephony, a move likely to reduce significantly the costs of harnessing satellite for two-way communication rather than traditional broadcasting. Nevertheless, these technologies are currently not viable options for the vast majority of South African educational providers and learners.
Another potential growth area for use of satellite technology is video conferencing. For example, if used to support discussion between groups of teachers, satellite-based video-conferencing could also be a very powerful professional development tool. Clearly, an important component of professional development programmes for teachers is to provide fora in which teachers can share their own teaching experiences and use this sharing to build common understandings of effective teaching and learning strategies. Currently, though, existing infrastructure and the costs of establishing and running effective two-way video conferencing in South Africa are a major inhibiting factor. Thus, any efforts to develop such a system will need to be integrated with strategies for using the infrastructure for a range of purposes.
Finally, many failed satellite-based initiatives have employed a system employing one-way video and two-way audio conferencing. It should be noted here that the observations about failed initiatives do not imply a criticism of this model per se. The National Technological University in Fort Collins, for example, uses this type of technology very effectively in a wide range of post-graduate courses for students in the workplace. In that example, though, the self-motivation of the learners, and the very rich learning environment that they enjoy in their places of work overcome the limitations of the system. This does not, however, mean that such a model is universally applicable. Similarly, many courses will need to include some measure of information transmission as part of the learning experience, whether this takes place face-to-face, via satellite, or using printed resources. This, however, is significantly different from confusing education with information transmission, as the latter model tends to assume that the two are synonymous, while the former integrates a measure of information transmission into a much wider and more sophisticated range of teaching and learning strategies.
This paper has drawn together a range of types of information in an effort to explore the potential and pitfalls of harnessing ICTs to accelerate social development. The paper has attempted to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric that tends to characterize debate in this area in South Africa. It has provided an overview of some key projects in South Africa, analysed some trends emerging from this, and then used education as a case study to explore further some practical ways of building on the lessons emerging from practice in the country over the past five years. I hope that this makes a small contribution to building successful practice in harnessing the significant potential of ICTs for developmental purposes.
| South Africa | contents | ||
Southern African Global Distance Education Network |
|||