Question No. 285
Mr DA Kganare (Congress of the People) to ask the Minister of Basic Education:
(1) (a) How many educators have been trained in the use of computers, (b) who trained them, (c) when they were trained, (d) how was the service provider appointed and (e) who paid them for training;
(2) Whether these service providers are accredited; if not, why were they were appointed;
3. When will the (a) roll-out of providing each educator with a laptop resume and (b) last educator get a laptop?
Reply
1. (a) Teacher training in information communication technology (ICT):
* training in basic ICT skills: 52 915
* the use of ICT training for administration: 31 091
* teacher training in ICT integration: 23 980
* training in technical support: 22 361
* teachers offering computer applications technology: 1 578
1. (b) Provinces are responsible for teacher development in schools. Each province has an ICT in Education Teacher Development programme. They make use of a range of in house e-learning specialists, higher education institutions (universities and universities of technology), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as School Net South Africa and private sector such as Microsoft ‘Partners in Learning’ and Intel ‘Teach to the Future ’and EduNova.
1. (c) Central to the implementation of ICT is the continuous development of managers, administrators and teachers. The national Department of Education is responsible for policy and support to provinces. In this regard the Department of Basic Education has implemented the following teacher development and support processes to support the attainment of the e-education goals:
* Guidelines for teacher training and professional development in ICT were published (Department of Education, 2007). This document presents an important milestone, in that it attempts to adequately address the ICT training needs of teachers and managers
* Module 12 of the Principals’ ACE was developed by the Department of Education and focuses on the management of and with ICT in schools. The programme is currently being piloted with 400 school principals
* An interactive CD containing subject advisors training in the use of ICT was developed. This forms the basis for a programme for the integration of ICT into teaching and learning and the support thereof for subject advisors
* Partnership programmes for the development of ICT skills of teachers through the Microsoft’s Partners in Learning, Intel’s Teach, the School Net South Africa Teacher Development Framework and other programmes and
* The Thutong Educational portal was developed to provide a platform for teachers to access resources, communicate, collaborate and contribute to the resource pool of the portal.
1. (d) Provincial Education Departments remunerate service providers that have been tendered.
2. All service providers employed by provinces are at least accredited through the Information Systems, Electronics and Telecommunication Technologies Sector Education and Training (ISETT SETA). Teacher development is a continuous process.
3 (a) The implementation of the teacher laptop initiative began 1 July 2009.
3 (b) The initiative is phased in over two years according to the seniority of the educator. As this is a condition of service, it will continue indefinitely since we have teachers entering the profession on a daily basis.
Issued by: Department of Basic Education
3 July 2009
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education.gov.za/)
