ICT continues to be key driver in the advancement of education – Motshekga

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said Information and Communication Technology (ICT) continues to be a key driver in the advancement of education especially amid the Covid-19 pandemic which has had a huge impact on learners across the country.

Motshekga was speaking at Vodaworld on Monday on how Vodacom and the government have partnered to promote virtual learning.

The initiative was ignited in March 2020 when then Communication and Digital Technologies (DCDT) Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams issued directions in the Government for temporary spectrum to alleviate network challenges, ease congestion, and ensure good quality of service for consumers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Basic Education Sector agreed that the schools should be provided with a turnkey solution and seventeen schools were selected in the 8 NHI Districts to pilot the Virtual classroom solution.

Vodacom was allocated six schools in three provinces, including Limpopo, Northern Cape and KwaZulu Natal to implement and install the Virtual Classroom Solution.

The handover ceremony was held at the Vodacom headquarters in Midrand marked the official transfer of the hardware installed at the schools to deliver Wi-Fi over a secure cloud-based SD-WAN network.

The Virtual Classroom Solution was launched in 2020 in partnership with Microsoft South Africa.

The platform is a single educational space where learners can connect with their teachers and access productivity apps like Teams, OneNote, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Greater access and connectivity for all schools

Motshekga said Covid-19 has allowed the department to accelerate their progress towards greater access and connectivity for all schools across the country.

“With this launch we truly believe that the sector will continue to make great strides in ensuring that all children across the country benefit from the opportunities that come with connectivity.”

Vodacom Business Chief Officer, William Mzimba said the company believes in partnering with government to not only drive digital inclusion in the country but to also democratise access to connectivity and bridge the gap between legacy education systems and technology.

“Online education is an important societal equaliser as learners will have access to technological equipment and online educational content regardless of their socio-economic status or geographic location.”

A total of 101 laptops were supplied to educators, with 1 360 laptops donated to Grade 12 learners across the schools.

Vodacom also provisioned an additional 437 laptops so that the schools can install these in centrally accessible libraries, giving Grade 10 and 11 learners a chance to familiarise themselves with the digital devices and applications, ahead of being issued with their own device when they reach Grade 12.

To enable connectivity remotely for the educators and learners, Vodacom has provided a monthly 10G data bundle plus SIM for the learners and a 20G monthly data bundle with a SIM and MiFi router for the educators.

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