Programme Director
North West MEC for Education Honourable Ms Wendy Matsemela
George Ferreira – Vice President of Samsung Electronics Africa
Chris Yako – Education Lead, B2B Enterprise Mobile
Mr P Mnisi, Department of Basic Education Director for Curriculum Innovation and e-Learning
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It gives me a great pleasure to officiate at this handover of yet another e-Learning tool within the basic education sector. I am indeed humbled and honoured to be your guest today.
What really warms my heart is that we are handing over a facility that will contribute to teacher development. Teacher Development is at the heartbeat of a functioning school system. As a result therefore teacher development is one of the major focus areas in this current term of office. This will include various policy reviews including conditions of service, teacher recruitment, deployment, utilisation and development including a sustained focus on teachers’ professional development.
All of us involved in this sector know very well that in order for us to improve the quality of our education – classroom teaching must improve so that learners can receive quality knowledge at the requisite level. Equally, in-order to effectively deliver the curriculum it is crucial that we have the correct teacher, teaching the correct subject in front of the class. To achieve this we have launched various initiatives including Teacher Training Centres, Teacher Development Institutes, Subject Committees and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)
However; our singular focus on teacher development is anchored equally by our conscious bias towards Information Communication Technology (ICT). The Council of Education Ministers’ (CEM) has resolved that ICT is to be one of key priorities for the sector to act as an anchor for the radical transformation of the basic education. We have come to the determination within the sector that ICT is crucial to improve the quality and efficiency of the system from a number of aspects including administration, e-learning and teacher training. The ICT rollout to succeed requires an interdepartmental approach looking at various issues of connectivity, broadband, devices, electricity, and budget amongst others. I am happy to report that the Presidency is leading the ICT revolution in our sector through its Operation Phakisa.
It is within this context that I am extremely excited that today, we are handing over yet another ICT compliant and enabled Teacher Training Centre known as Samsung E-Learning Centre as part of Hectorex Teacher Training Centre.
This is a clear demonstration of how the private sector can play an important role in supporting government in its quest for quality education.
The Minister of Basic Education, myself and the entire Government applaud the investment in teacher development by the technology giant Samsung Electronics. This intervention leverages the power of technology to improve both teaching and learning.
The White Paper on e-Education guides the integration and use of technology in our schools and it strongly advocates for the curriculum to be “supported through effective, engaging and sustained software, electronic content and online learning resources”. It further calls for skilled teachers, content developers and administrators who will continuous maintain and contribute effectively to the use of these resources.
It is for this reason that the e-Learning Centre we are launching today consists of the ICT Infrastructure (41 Tablets); Electronic content; Freedom Toaster; Learning management System software; Samsung Educational Content and Teacher Training tools.
The Samsung Electronics ICT platform for teacher development comes hot on the heels of another private sector investment by the telecommunications giant Vodacom equipping 40 of our Teacher Training Centres with fully functioning ICT tools.
Recently, together with our partners, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) South Africa and Mxit Reach we launched UKUFUNDA Virtual School. UKUFUNDA offers a wide range of free and open Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) aligned learning resources that can be accessed on more than 8 000 mobile devices - from low-end mobile phones to high-end smart phones and tablets. It offers access to tutors, counsellors, mentors, coaches, and librarians. It is more like having a virtual school in your pocket.
The Honourable Basic Education Minister Mrs Angie Motshekga this week launched the Community Knowledge Centre and School Computer LAB. Equally ground-breaking is that this is no ordinary computer lab but a fully-fledged cutting edge ICT platform providing a 3D virtual learning environment (3DVLE) and extends this by providing an online 3D constructed space in which students, represented by avatars (3D visual representations of themselves), can learn, create, explore, gather information and undertake research collaboratively and individually in their simulated virtual world.
Minister Motshekga is today addressing the media on her first 100 Days in office. She will elaborate on various ICT initiatives that are underway.
We are also pleased that Samsung Electronic has further committed to provide additional schools with the same solution in the following provinces: one school in Gauteng, two schools in Limpopo and two schools in the Eastern Cape. What makes this e-Learning platform even more ground-breaking is that although it was initially meant for the public sector environment, now even private schools such Crawford School Benmore, Mthatha Christian School and The German School are in line to install this platform.
Programme Director this handing over ceremony of the e-Learning Teacher Training Centre to North West could not have been made possible without the personal commitment of certain individuals. I particularly want to single out Mr George Ferreira – (Vice President of Samsung Electronics Africa)’s for his vision, commitment and hands on approach to the project from its conceptualisation stage to the final leg of implementation.
On behalf of the Education fraternity and the community of Madibeng, I want to say re a leboga (thank you in Sesotho).
I want to assure you that these resources will go a long way towards contributing to the improved and quality education for our learners today and generations to come.
I thank you.
