Executive Summary
This document represents the culmination of a long process of
research, consultation, and debate, begun at a national workshop in November, 1995,
continuing with a Ministerial Committee’s Technology-Enhanced Learning Investigation,
and concluding with a strategic planning process which has led to this plan.
This plan focuses on the implementation of various key projects,
which have been identified throughout this process as key to efforts to introduce and use
technologies effectively in South African education and training. The projects proposed in
this report have been drawn from the recommendations made by the TELI Committee and the
draft policy statement which followed the report. They focus on providing a supportive
environment in which educational decision-makers at various levels in the system can make
effective decisions, about which technologies to introduce into teaching and learning
environments and implement these decisions successfully.
The Strategic Planning Committee has identified six
‘lead’ projects, which it believes can serve as an effective platform for the
implementation of the TELI projects to create a ‘technology-enhanced learning
network’. These projects are as follows:
- Supporting curriculum development and delivery in three key areas at grade eight
level
- Delivering technically oriented vocational education, in three areas of national
priority, combining on and off the job training
- Developing a generic information literacy course for use in schools, community
centres, industry-based training sites, and other appropriate sites of teaching and
learning
- Professional development of educators in the use of technologies in education and
training
- Training and supporting managers of learning centres of different kinds
- Running a pilot provincial project to test new strategies for introducing
technology to support the management and administration of education and training
In support of these lead projects, various other projects will
also be initiated, many of which are linked. These projects are not subordinate to the
lead projects. Rather, the lead projects will depend heavily on the successful
implementation of the enabling projects and are intended, quite literally, to lead the way
in terms of providing models which can be adapted and used in different contexts and
educational sectors. As this starts to happen, the enabling projects will need to grow in
scope and reach in order to provide support to new projects. They are as follows:
- Establishing structured relationships between the Department of Education and the
major physical infrastructure providers in order to ensure that all sites of teaching and
learning are equipped with basic infrastructure within five years
- Encouraging new approaches to making decisions about the use of technologies in
education and training
- Establishing a clearing-house of information and web site to support
technology-enhanced learning
- Coordinating an audit of existing technology-enhanced learning resources at
different sites of teaching and learning
- Developing internationally acceptable technical standards and protocols for
technologies to be used in the South African education and training system
- Establishing a funding mechanism to support the effective introduction and use of
technologies and to initiate and support course materials design and development
initiatives
- Contributing a ‘technology-enhanced learning’ perspective to the
development of policy on the professional development of educators
- Developing a coherent and coordinated strategy for providing educational
direction to the development of a network of community centres
- Developing an instructional design course, covering course materials design and
development for a range of media and technologies
- Making available an introductory course on use of the Internet
- Establishing qualifications and standards for information and communications
technologies
- Integrating quality assurance and evaluation into all proposed initiatives
- Developing generic quality assurance and evaluation tools
In presenting these projects, we have sought to cluster them
around the lead projects identified, in order to provide a sense of coherence and to
ensure that they focus on benefiting learners directly.
In implementing these projects, the following principles have
been identified as crucial to their success:
it is necessary to sketch out some fundamental principles which
lie at the heart of implementing the projects. These are as follows:
- The driving objective of all of the projects outlined below is to empower
decision-makers at all levels of the education and training system to be able to make and
implement decision themselves more effectively and within a common - and supportive -
national framework.
- The projects outlined in this strategic plan will not operate in isolation from
other existing projects. Wherever possible and appropriate, these projects will be
integrated into existing Departmental and non-Departmental projects. The focus is not on
creating new initiatives; it is on helping existing initiatives to run more
cost-effectively.
- All projects will rely on the establishment of appropriate partnerships and
cooperation between a wide range of organizations, to ensure maximum benefit with minimum
cost and duplication of efforts.
- Any investments in technologies will be intended, wherever possible, to be
available for use in different sectors of education and training and for as long a period
in the day, week, and year as possible.
- Implementation processes will not necessarily be controlled by the Department. In
some cases, the Department will obviously wish to manage the project itself (for example,
in establishing the clearing-house of information) but, in many (for example course design
and development projects) it will hand responsibility for management and control to the
external participants, while maintaining some link to the project to ensure it fits into
the broader objectives of TELI.
- All projects will have detailed quality assurance and evaluation processes
running as an integral component of their implementation.
- All projects have been designed with the specific intention of benefitting
learners, either directly or indirectly. This objective will provide the focus for
evaluating the success of projects and for determining whether or not to continue with
them.
- Wherever, possible, projects will be funded from existing budgets, both of the
Department and other participating organizations, in an effort to ensure that TELI does
not simply ‘add on’ costs to existing educational budgets. Where funding is
required, the strategy adopted will rely both on provision of funding and on contributions
‘in kind’, in an effort to allow maximum participation by a wide range of
interested parties.
- All projects will seek, wherever possible, to develop exemplars or models of
implementation which can then be used to support the implementation of other projects
which are not part of this strategic plan - both during and after the five year time-frame
of the plan.
- The projects will be arranged so that those learners marginalized and
discriminated against by racial and other inequalities in the system are given appropriate
educational and social experiences. Particular attention will be given to the needs of
learners with disabilities in poor and rural contexts. Furthermore, they will strive to
enable individuals with disabilities to be integrated into the general community as equal
partners, and to attain fuller citizenship and the best possible quality life as adults.
- The projects will seek to ensure the development of centres of learning which are
enabling environments that make it possible for all learners to advance to their full
potential, and where all learners are seen as valued and needed members of the learning
community in every respect.
In addition, this plan provides the following key information
about each project to be implemented:
- Outputs
- Objectively verifiable indicators and means of verification
- Timelines
- Resource requirements and budgets
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