A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE GAUTENGONLINE AND THE KHANYA PROJECTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Introduction Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are significant to the changes taking place all over the world. The South African governments primary objective is to improve the education of its citizens. In the year 2000 the Website government rolled out the implementation of ICT into schools as the way of improving the culture of teaching and learning in schools. The government introduced two well known projects in two provinces, which are Khanya and GautengOline projects. The question is how successful are these projects in obtaining the governments primary objective. This document critiques the implementation of ICT on GautengOnline and Khanya Projects. Kozma, B revealed in his writing the variety of potential impacts ICT can have when implemented in education. Kozma mentioned three ranges of potential impacts on ICT which are student outcomes, teacher and classroom outcomes and broader contextual outcomes. It is within this range of potential impact that GautengOnline and Khanya projects will be critically evaluated with regard to their successes and challenges.

The Negative and Positive Impacts

The availability of computer laboratories in Gauteng was applauded by the communities and political parties in the province. On the positive note this was giving a chance to learners who did not have even a set of television at home as the means of communication. The ongoing relationship of the availability of computers and student learning is a big problem with the GautengOnline project. The timetable which has to be designed for Gautengonline is not followed by educators. This impacted negatively to the progress of learners both in skills to be gained and learning area knowledge. The number of computers given per school gives a negative impact, because 25 computers cannot cater for 50 learners attending to the computer laboratory. The reality is that not all learners gain proper and total access to the 25 computers for them to gain the necessary skills. Learners are always interested and keen to learn through ICT but factors such as lack of resources delays the progress. One other disappointment is the connectivity which is always off line.

The GautengOnline project was completed, schools had computer

laboratories but disappointingly educators were incompetent to get on with the projects. In most of the schools very few teachers were computer literate even the few who were computer literate could not integrate ICT with learning areas. The teacher trainings given by the department were insufficient as teachers did not cope and the computer laboratories ended up being white horse in schools. The researchers mislead the Gauteng department of education by giving the general overview of the needs analysis of schools in Gauteng. The researchers should have tried to be specific about the individual schools contextual factors in terms of security and electricity. Crime incidents differ in all Gauteng locations but the security facilities installed were of the same standard. Criminals broke into many computer labs stealing all computers and television sets. This affected the project as schools could not operate on their computer labs for more than five years. This is blamed on improper research and planning. Another contextual factor that failed GautengOnline is the electricity supply of most schools was not upgraded to cater for the demand of the computer labs. Most schools experienced the fluctuating power supply and this damaged the electronic components.

The Western Cape department of education also rolled out the

implementation of Information communication Technology to schools as mandated by the National Education department. Their project is (Click on the above image to read more about the Khanya Project) called Khanya project and this project obviously operated differently compared to the GautengOnline project. The Khanya project is recognised worldwide because of the wonderful results it has produced to an extent that it won some awards. It is said that the matric results improved since the introduction of ICT in schools and this is the success of the Khanya project. The Khanya project has given 25 computers, one television set, one printer and the whiteboard to all the Western Cape schools. There was an outcry about the shortage of resources. The Khanya project opted for partnership with big businesses and partnership with communities. The educators were encouraged by giving them thorough training on how to integrate ICT with the learning areas and that certain subject were given first priority for integration with ICT. They had challenges with the criminal factors that actually disturbed their project to succeed. Reacting to this threat the khaya project adopted a system

whereby every component in their computer labs had a tracking device and currently they are standing at zero cases of burglary in their schools. It is evidently clear that Khanya had better plan and research than GautengOnline and that many schools in both projects still lack resources to make a mark in as far as ICT integration with learning areas.

Bibliography Khanya Project., 2008. Khanya Achievements [Online] Available at: http://www.khanya.co.za/projectinfo/?catid=23 [Accessed 01 September 2012]. van Wyk, K., 2002. Khanya Business Plan [Online] Available at: http://www.khanya.co.za/projectinfo/?catid=22 [Accessed 02 September 2012]. Gauteng online project., 2009. Gauteng Online Slammed as 3BN Flop [Online] Available at: http://www.educationweb.co.za/ew/?p=467 [Accessed 25 August 2012]. Mahlong, A., 2009. GSSC defends Gauteng Online [Online] Available at: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/General/7053.html [Accessed on 26 August 2012].