All Western Cape schools will have free, high-speed access to the Internet by the end of 2016, the province’s premier, Helen Zille, said on Tuesday.
Zille said the plan is to use the access to offer e-learning to pupils to improve both literacy and numeracy and ensure they are “better prepared for the 21st century”.
Some 1 240 schools will be connected at a speed of 100Mbit/s by the end of next year, Zille said.
“The e-learning programme has two key parts. The first is free high-speed broadband access. The second is to give learners and teachers instant access to the very best digital materials for teaching and learning,” the province said.
The Western Cape government said it is investing R3,8bn over 10 years to bring broadband to residents, with schools identified as the first priority. R2bn of the total has been earmarked to connect them.
The first schools were connected in April. At the end of August, service providers had completed connectivity at 275 schools.
“A total of 581km of fibre-optic cable will have been laid by the end of 2016, alongside the existing 1 251km Neotel cable network. This is the backbone that connects all schools and other sites across the province,” the province said.
The provincial education department is installing local-area networks in schools, district offices and at its head office to connect classrooms, teachers and pupils to the broader administration system.
“The plan also includes investment in technology in ‘smart classrooms’, including interactive whiteboards, laptops, projectors and other devices to support teaching and learning,” it said.
About 3 350 smart classrooms were established in schools in the 2014/2015 financial year, the province said, with the education department refreshing 249 computer laboratories in the same year.
An e-learning portal has gone live, providing access to digital education resources. “Users can search for a range of content, including videos, apps, e-books, courses and digital documents.”
“The content available on the portal will be entirely demand-driven, with content suppliers competing to provide the best digital resources,” the provincial government said. Learners and teachers can rate the content, with the most popular content surfacing to the top in search results. This signals a fundamental shift away from top-down, supply-driven government.”
Users can explore the content by keyword or by using a wide range of filters, including the type of user (learners and teachers), subject, grade, language, paid for and free resources, and type of activity, for example, teaching or school administration, it added.
Contributors can register on the site and upload information using templates. They can tag their content according to types — for example, subjects, grades, end users and types of activities.
Schools and teachers can also upload content, allowing them to share best practice with each other, including proven teaching tips, video lessons and successful school governance policies, the province said. “Content will be screened only to ensure that it is relevant, and aligned to the national curriculum as required.” — © 2015 NewsCentral Media
