Gauteng education department is going digital in the classroom

The department said it had recognised the need to embrace technology and provide an e-learning environment for pupils.

The project will see more than 80‚000 tablets being distributed in the province. The department said excellence in education requires the right tools and environment to facilitate and advance students' skills and knowledge.

The department's chief information officer Brenda Molatlhegi told the delegates at the Gauteng ICT summit that pupils and teachers would be equipped with the latest technologies to enhance e-learning.

Educator participation

"Educator participation plays a key role in making sure these devices do not go without use‚" she said.

The project by the province comes soon after the benefits of such a move were being proffered. In a paper published last year by the Africa Institute of SA‚ the direct benefits of the use of ICT in education were revealed.

The document said exposure to ICT would help pupils to develop skills that would give them an edge in an increasingly technology-saturated work environment. Introducing ICT into the school curriculum would also allow pupils to become creators of knowledge in their own right.

Cloud Seed chief executive James Ainslie said that children were built to learn and technologies needed to be made less scary and relevant to their learning needs to create what he called "a great platform that allows the inquisitive nature of children to be enhanced".

But‚ said Microsoft academic specialist Riedwaan Bassadien‚ some of the main challenges for most pupils in SA was a lack of awareness about ICT and broadband affordability.