Programme Director, Mr Silver Tjantjie
Acting Mayor of Emfuleni Local Municipality, Mr Khulu Malindi
Sedibeng West District Director, Mr Victor Thetha
Representative from Sentech, Mr Kopano Thage
Acting Principal, Ms Nandi Motloung
Teachers and learners,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning
Introduction
Let me first start by thanking the MEC of Gauteng province Mr Panyaza Lesufi for the announcement he made that all Gauteng schools should be paperless. Allow me to also congratulate Sentech and the school for the successful completion of this project. We congratulate the school because ICTs are a game changer, they bring with them new opportunities such as new learning methods.
The programme of Schools Connectivity started back in 2010 after the soccer world cup. The president has sat down with the local organizing committee to come up with what at the time was called 2010 Soccer World Cup Legacy Project. A number of schools have been connected since then, which benefitted a lot of learners and the project is still continuing with the support from our stakeholders such as Sentech.
In his State of the Nation Address the president has urged us to make broadband rollout a priority for the most rural areas, starting with the most rural districts. In the spirit of the broadband roll out policy the school is part of the local clinic and a local police station, a local cooperative and a local post office which we want to make them the access points for broadband connectivity. With all these access points we are hoping to achieve the ultimate outcome of economic inclusion.
We are ecstatic that today we officially open this computer on the eve of the World International World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The 17th May marks the anniversary of the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telecommunication Union. This year, 2015, marks the 150th anniversary of the International Telecommunication Union. 150 years down the line, the Information Communications Technology that was always talked about reaches the children of Radipeu Primary School.
On his message for the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day of 2014, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki Moon said:
“Broadband connectivity is a transformative tool to achieve the three pillars of sustainable development – economic growth, social inclusion and environmental balance. It is a key element of the debate on the post-2015 development agenda.
Broadband networks provide smart eco-friendly solutions to manage booming cities and transport systems; enhance efficiency for manufacturing industries and power generation; conduct long-distance diagnosis and treatment for patients in remote locations; and promote innovative educational applications for students around the world.”
We are raising our glasses high with the world and embrace the endless possibilities which broadband connectivity brings with. The purpose of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) is to help raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT) can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide. This year the WTISD is celebrated under the theme - “Telecommunications and ICTs: Drivers of innovation”.
National Broadband Policy - SA Connect
Our government made a commitment that government will expand, modernise and increase the affordability of information and communications infrastructure and electronic communication services, including broadband and digital broadcasting. A response to this commitment is the “South Africa Connect”, which is our Broadband Policy and Strategy, adopted by cabinet in December 2013.
This policy was developed in response to evolving global trends, and the need to meet the diverse ICT requirements of the people of South Africa. SA Connect adopts an integrated and cross-cutting, but citizen-centric approach to broadband deployment. The approach leverages the linkages in the ICT ecosystem to create a more equitable knowledge economy and information society. South Africa Connect mobilises the capabilities, resources and commitment of both the public and private sectors, together with civil society, in order to connect South Africans to each other as well as South Africa to the continent and the world. This collective energy will be channelled towards realising a bold vision of a connected society.
With our National Broadband Policy and the roll-out that is currently taking place, Broadband will soon be like the air we breathe in the whole information society. SA Connect has, as one of its objectives, to ensure that people are able to realise the benefits of broadband by having the necessary awareness, skills and relevant content and applications, which together will stimulate demand and uptake. The policy’s has four pillars, which are: Digital Readiness, Digital Development, digital Future and Digital Opportunity.
Digital opportunities
The development of the Information Society as well as the application of ICT for an increased efficiency in economic and societal processes requires coordinated efforts from all government institutions, the private sector and civil society. All the efforts for the implementation of the Digital Opportunities programme are underpinned by the multi-stakeholder approach that will be taken, to ensure that the Information Society is developed in a coordinated manner through cooperation amongst all stakeholders.
SA Connect has identified human capital development as a key success factor in ensuring social and economic inclusion in the Information Society and knowledge-economy. We will be working in collaboration with iNESI, which is our e-skills institute. Interventions in this area will be in respect of the following:
- Demand-side skills –e-literacy programmes
- Institutional capacity – skilling staff in the ICT sector/industry
- Supply-side skills – high level specialisation skills
Our former president, uTata Nelson Mandela once said:
"Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mines, that a child of farm workers can become president of a great nation."
Digital future
The digital future will serve the communication needs in critical domains such as health, education, health and safety and security and also enable network extension to areas that might not ordinarily be reached by operators by reducing the associated investment risk as well as by ensuring demand.
This will also reduce government’s ongoing operational expenditure on communications through upfront capital expenditure. Ultimately, this aggregated public demand could serve as an anchor tenant in the open access broadband network.
With the connection that we are making here today there will really not be any limits to what education can help these children achieve in future. We are now in an epoch which calls for a change in old ways of doing things; this is the e-Skills revolution for the unknown future. There are still unknown required skills for this revolution. We have to all ask different questions when we talk about families, what kind of skills do they require to socialize the young ones, what about transferring our cultural values, what about the youth, what e-skills do they require to innovate, learn and position themselves as agitators for the unknown future, how do we ensure that teachers use technologies for desired outcomes.
The National Development Plan
With the roll-out of Broadband we are re-imagining our future in line with the National Development Plan. The NDP is quite firm and resolute on the outcomes it desires to see accomplished with regards to the e-skills needed for a growing economy. Institutions of higher learning have a responsibility to ensure that the investments commitments made in post doctoral degrees and increased enrolment in universities come to fruition and the outcome is of outstanding quality. The impact of the improved and increased quality of e-skills will be seen on how we measure in terms of our economic performance outcomes.
Connecting a School Connecting a Village
Through all our e-strategies we have a strong bias towards the inclusion agenda of the most vulnerable in society, the girl child, the disabled and those in rural areas and other high risk areas like farming communities. With our girl children; we want to create a situation whereby it doesn’t matter the location, “she will connect”. We have the following programmes which are aimed at the inclusion of the vulnerable groups in our society:
The e-Cadre Project
The e-Cadre Project is the Department’s flagship for the National Youth Service Programme. We are currently rounding off the training of the 3rd cohort which was targeting about 260 young people. This project is implemented in partnership with Technical and Vocational Training and Education (TVET) Colleges, which are the former FET Colleges. For the 3rd Cohort, this project is implemented in the following towns; Queenstown, Umthatha, Pietermaritzburg, Richards Bay, Thaba Nchu, Kimberly and Springs. It should however be noted that training has been held in all 9 provinces during the training of the 1st and 2nd Cohorts.
In this project the young people receive training for six months on the end-user computing training programme called International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) which upon completion they get deployed for 6 months to assist in service delivery in public institutions. Upon completion of service deployment, they are then linked to exit opportunities which include amongst others further education, entrepreneurship and employment.
The ECD Technology Access Programme
The Early Childhood Development (ECD) Technology programme is aimed at introducing and promoting the use of technology in the running and education in ECD Centres. The initial concept was aimed at piloting the project in 10 sites nationally but due to limited funding, the pilot has been reduced to two ECD Centres with one in Virginia in Free State and another in Elim in the Western Cape. This is a capital investment project where centres will be assisted with an e-package which amounts to a maximum of R90, 000 per centre.
The e-package consists of the following:
- A Television set
- Satellite Television connection and subscription for a year
- Personal Computer with internet connection subscription of a year
- Desktop multifunction Printer
- Electronic Educational Toys
- Basic Computer Training for ECD Workers
Child Online Protection Programme
South Africa is the member country of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Department’s Child Online Protection programme is based on the ITU Child Online Protection (COP) Guidelines.
The key objectives of the ITU COP are as follows:
- Identify risks and vulnerabilities to children in cyberspace
- Create awareness
- Develop practical tools to help minimise risks
- Share knowledge and experience
Children learn and get a lot of information on the internet but there have been other negative developments and aspects of being online that children need to be made aware of and be protected from, these include amongst others, the following; exposure to inappropriate materials like pornography and extreme violence.
The Department has started implementing the awareness component of Child Online Protection Programme by implementing awareness workshops in schools. In the previous financial year the department implemented the workshops at the following schools; Eersterust Secondary School (Pretoria), Ikusasa Comprehensive School (Thembisa) and Nongeke Senior Secondary School (Bhizana).
e-Parenting programme
The dawn of the digital age and the fact that young people are the early adopters of technology and keyness of technology for socio-economic development has come with a number of opportunities but also challenges as well for the parents. The e-parenting programme is aimed at ensuring that the parents appreciate the developmental aspect of ICTs and the positive role it plays in the development of their children. The programme is also aimed at raising the parent’s awareness of the potential dangers that their kids may be exposed to online. This programme is implemented as a sub-programme of the Child Online Protection Programme.
The major focus for this programme was to develop the programme concept which will guide and focus the interventions. This was achieved and the department will start piloting some projects to initiate implementation on proposed intervention areas in the concept.
Partnership with African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics
We are proud to report that we have sponsored the establishment of the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics at the University of Pretoria. This initiative - a first of its kind – is being implemented in partnership with the academic sector and is aimed at promoting research on Information Ethics in Africa. It also seeks to galvanise a unified approach to increase awareness and education on the ethical dimension of an Information Society. This programme has sparked great interest in the African continent with UNESCO having pledged its support and associated itself and its programmes with the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics, and more than 25 countries in Africa having been part of the programme.
Techno girl Programme
This is an ongoing job shadowing programme whereby young girls learn about a job by walking through the work day as a shadow to a competent worker. The Department is committed to support the STEM initiative which focuses on promoting Science, Technology and Engineering and Mathematics. The Techno girl programme of the Department is in line with the STEM. Our program aims at placing grade 9 to 11 girls in companies and organizations for job shadowing specifically in the Technology and Science environment and the Department has been supporting the program since 2012 and it has also encouraged its SOCs to participate in the program. The programme encourages girls to be Tech women of the future as they learn and get exposed to what the department is doing in terms of ensuring the ICT implementation in the country.
Mobinet for Girls programme
The Mobinet programme is a project that aims at empowering women and girls to use ICTs enable them to raise awareness on issues relating to women and girls such violence against women, teenage pregnancy and sexual exploitation of women. This was done through the development of an interactive website and training of girls and women in citizen journalism to capacitate them to share their views on the forums created on the website. This is done in partnership with Women’s Net an NGO that focuses on using ICT as Platform to empower women and girls.
Gender and ICT Literacy Programme
The Gender and ICT Literacy programme aims to address the Section of the Beijing Platform for Action by ensuring that women gain access to technologies and the commitment by the DTPS to support the SADC declaration on “No Violence Against Women” through capacity building is implemented.
Conclusion
The points which we connect like this school here today are the access points which will help these children and the community to go beyond basics. No longer shall our children grow old without knowing what a computer looks like. With an initiative such as this, we are creating an environment that is conducive for innovation.
Learners of Radipeu an opportunity has been created for you. Take this with both of your hands and exploit all the available opportunities that come with ICTs. Let this computer laboratory be a motivation for you to work even harder to reach for your dreams.
I thank you.
