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Department of Education rapidly improving computer literacy among teachers to drive results
South Africa’s Department of Education is rapidly improving computer literacy among teachers – including allowances to senior teachers to buy laptops – to improve school management and learner results.
This weekend sees the last course of a two month project involving 2 000 principals their deputies and heads of departments after a realisation that few teachers, especially at senior levels in schools are computer literate. The course in Basic Computer Literacy in School Management (four credits, NQF level three) was run by South Africa’s largest education group, Educor with the Gauteng Provincial Government and working with the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance. Funding was provided by the national Department of Education.
It comes as the Department of Education begins applying pressure for rapid improvements in school management and learner results. In 2002 the Department of Education with private backers set aside R500m to try and get all 29 000 schools nationwide online by 2009, the project is running behind schedule and the new steps are meant to give it a powerful shove forward.
Roger Lloyen of the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership said, “Some courses are a sheer joy to be involved with and this is one. It has created dramatic changes in those attending. They are so fired up they go back to their schools and immediately start implementing. But too the joy the participants express in finally getting plugged into the amazing world of computers not only creates immense personal satisfaction for us, but also the knowledge that it will make a real impact on service delivery, on creating better school management and teachers and school leaders better able to motivate and guide their learners.
“We’ve also had tremendous support from Sadtu for this course.”
The course ends two months after the national Department of Education launched a national laptop allowance for fulltime teachers helping to subsidise a laptop for selected senior teachers. The laptop allowance is R11 750, comprising R4 000 for the hardware, discounted software at R350, insurance at R1 200 and internet connectivity at R6 000 a year which equates to a stipend of about R195 per month.
Some of the teachers attending the Educor course were so inspired they went out and took advantage of the DoE offer. Louise Nair, CEO of Educor noted that: “Many attendees before the course didn’t even know how to switch on a computer, some held the mouse in the air; others confessed they had been too frightened to touch computers and had them packed in boxes or locked in store-rooms at their schools.”
They chuckled as facilitators, Marco Marnewick or Johan Mouton referred to the mouse as a lekgotla and Mouton’s assertion to be gentle with the mouse, “your mouse is sensitive, she is like nyazi (a woman).” Mouton, a computer teacher for 14 years, informed the 21 pupils ranging in age from 59 to 45 from Pretoria and Hammanskraal schools last week, “A menu is the same as what you get at the Wimpy, it is a list of options.” The ‘undo’ button he instructed the teachers is an “Eish!” button.
Philip Scheltema (54), deputy principal of General Nicolaas Smit primary school in Pretoria confessed that he had to be taught everything from how to switch on the computer to how to use the mouse. “In just two lessons it has changed my life, I’m no longer frightened to sms, I sent my wife my first sms last week. I’ve already started doing stock sheets and mark sheets and even letters.”
Louis Rafapa, a teacher for 18 years and head of the department of social services at Keketla Secondary School at Soshanguve said even though his school had a micro-lab with 36 computers, he had not known how to use one. “Now I can type my own letters! I’ve started teaching the other eight teachers in my department, this is so empowering.”
Marco Marnewick who helped facilitate the course said, “Many schools have computers but the computers have been off-limits to all staff. In some schools computers were still standing in boxes, so principals so scared would not let anyone touch the computer. After his first day at the course, one principal said he went back, picked up computer and said he told everyone they now needed to learn how to use it.
“For me it was amazing, this is a basic computer course, but if you can break the ice with the teachers and get them past the initial shock of working on the system, a brand new world opens for them. Before everything was done by hand, or some would laboriously write out things for office typists to then input.
“Another principal said guess what I did this week? I let the office staff capture all our finances on Excel, I now know how much money we have, before we guessed.” Marnewick said this transformed time management.
“They are doing amazingly well in the exams averaging 96%. In my classes the student with the lowest marks was aged 60 and she marked out at 83%.”
Forty-nine-year-old teacher Nkatu Johanna Lehobye said: “This course has made me proud.” Fellow teacher Ntsae Violet Ntsie (51) said, “This course was very informative we learned a lot, we wish that the duration should be extended in the near future.”
This comes as stats show that internet usage driven by access in schools and small business is expected to double in the next five years. A report by WorldWide Worx earlier this year showed that the number of internet users in South Africa grew by 12.5% to 4.6-million in 2008.
* Educor is the largest and oldest education group in South Africa including Damelin, Damelin Correspondence, Intec College, Lyceum College, CitiVarsity, ICESA Education Services and Millennia Graduate School of Business. It has more than 230 000 registered students serviced by more than 1 000 staff at 58 colleges in South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia and Botswana.~*~
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