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9 February 2005

Mr Mark Shuttleworth,
Representatives of the Shuttleworth Foundation,
Distinguished Guests,
Learners,
Parents,
Members of the Community,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am pleased to be here today at the official start of the Tuxlab Roadshow.

We all know that there is a need for fundamental change in the way education and training is offered in South Africa. The challenges facing education in South Africa are located within a broader political-economic context. South Africa is indeed a country of two economies. At the one end there is a highly sophisticated, largely urban, globally connected and competitive part of the system; alongside which lies a marginalised, largely rural, poverty stricken part of the system.

Although the division is not strictly racially based, the black majority - almost exclusively African - populates the marginalised part of the system. It is this recognition that has motivated us as a Ministry and the Department of Education to mobilise society and focus attention on the equalising capability and potential of Information Communication Technology.

The department of education recognises the importance of ICT in enabling us to reach our development goals and objectives as enshrined in the Freedom Charter. The rapid advance of ICT allows us to disseminate relevant information more effectively to communities disadvantaged by distance. This in turn will translate into a more rapid expansion of essential services to such communities thus contributing towards the achievement of our development objectives.

We are committed to increase investment in those subjects that forms the basis of ICT namely mathematics, science and technology. Our national mathematics and science strategy forms a critical part of this thrust toward encouraging greater interest in ICT. We need young people who will grow up having been exposed to basic desktop PC systems, young people who will grow up using and understanding the technology, young people who are computer literate. This may require a review of the current methodologies used in the teaching of computer studies.

In education, an analysis of the current situation with regard to access to ICT infrastructure and connectivity bears witness to the disparities and inequalities in provision and access. A huge majority of learners have no access to a computer and the information highway. Only 29% of public schools in this country have access to IT infrastructure. Internet access is even worse, as less than 10% of schools have access to the Internet. These generalisations of course hide the unevenness across provinces and schools within provinces. Improvements are noticeable in all provinces, even in those provinces that were below the national average.

These disparities echo the disparities in the economic base of the country. Provinces that are largely rural and poor are the ones that are poorly resourced and connected.

Some critical observations can be made from this situation:

1. There is a need for a strong political will to drive the initiative.
2. The pace of delivery has to be accelerated, if the current pace is maintained we will lose the gains made thus far.
3. Government alone cannot cope with the demand and the apparent pressure.
4. Initiatives should begin to take cognisance of the levels of development across provinces and individual schools. Our effort should deliberately be skewed towards those provinces and schools that continue to suffer the most marginalisation and neglect.

The e-Education White Paper

In the e-Education White Paper, we have set out targets to be achieved by the end of 2007. Although ambitious, these targets are achievable and we need to make a concerted effort to reach them. We need collective will, unity of purpose and a coordination of efforts.

The targets that have to be achieved by 2007 are to:

* build an education and training system to support ICT integration in teaching and learning and improved management and administration;
* build teachers’ and managers’ confidence in the use of ICTs;
* build a framework for competencies for teacher development in the integration of ICTs into the curriculum;
* establish an ICT presence in schools;
* ensure that schools use education content of high quality;
* ensure that schools are connected, that they access the internet and communicate electronically; and that
* Communities use and support ICT facilities in public schools.

In this regard, the primary responsibility of the Ministry of Education is to set norms and standards. To this end, we have declared the White Paper on e-Education. In addition, we have coordinated the development of provincial plans for the advancement and realisation of these policy objectives.

In every developing country, infrastructure and the maintenance and sustainability of that infrastructure remain a challenge. There are key questions that need to be answered. These, amongst others, include the following: Do we aim to have at least one computer in each of our 28 000 schools for improving the management and administration of the school? Do we aim to put computer labs in every school, or also to make 3-5 computers available for teacher use? Is a computer in every class not perhaps a better option? Or do we attempt to do all of the above? At present, we are targeting to ensure that there is at least one computer per school for improved management and administration and further make available 3-5 computers for teaching and learning, used as a starting point. This will incrementally grow to the desired goal of a computer lab of about 25 computers per school.

A further challenge relates to the maintenance and sustainability of the infrastructure and its use. Often the delivery of infrastructure at a school is no guarantee of its use. Where such infrastructure is used, the care and maintenance necessary is sometimes so feeble that the project dies a natural death within months. This also links to another challenge - the safety of the infrastructure. There are many cases where high cost infrastructure is lost within days of being installed. Creative solutions to these and other problems must always remain a priority.

Open Source – A Potential for Education?

This brings me closer to the issue at hand. The challenge we now face is to determine the extent to which we can utilise open source to assist us in enhancing the potential of the technological path we have chosen. Can it pave a new road and change not only the destination, but also the journey we are to follow?

What other contributions can it offer to achieve education and training objectives?

It is my hope and belief that the tuXlab initiative will provide us with relevant answers to these questions as well as with guidelines for further action.

The Case for Open Source

Before considering the educational value of open source, it is worth noting that the case for using open source for broader social and economic development is quite compelling. Open source appears to be emerging as a powerful new way of generating knowledge and economic value. Its overall value lies in a range of tried and tested programmes that can be improved and widened by an extended developmental base. What I find particularly exciting is that it is returned to the public domain for use and further development.

We can presume that such access and development has the potential of empowering people in ways that we can only dream of. On the one hand, it can do this by offering users a choice to probe, modify, learn from and customise, as well as to harness the power of many small contributions from a large network of individuals.

On the other hand, it can be an especially useful tool to allow developing countries to leapfrog into the information age. It can also be an enabler for the creation of new markets and business opportunities, as well as offer the option of customising software to suit local languages and cultures.

There are numerous favourable reports and a significant following in favour of Open Source. As in many other countries, the Government in South Africa is keen to capitalise on the benefits that open source can offer.

Current usage

As you know, several open source applications are already being either tested or implemented in the public sector in South Africa. Health and Public Service and Administration are just two that come to mind immediately.

Furthermore, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is making a substantial contribution in promoting the use of open source. Particularly significant though, is the fact that open source is now entering the agendas of other high-level bodies, such as the Presidential International Advisory Council on Information Society and Development, the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development, as well as the National e-Strategy Task Team.

We can say that open source has entered the mainstream but has still not reached a critical mass in which its impact has become noticeable in society as a whole.

The need to deriving educational value from open source software

We know of the pockets of educational use of open source globally as well as here in South Africa. But we need to ask ourselves certain critical questions, such as; can we harness this energy for wider education and training purposes?

At a technical level, we will first need to develop the necessary capacity to develop, understand and support open source in our schools. Quick, efficient and effective expertise must be readily available and be developed to assist users, particularly in rural areas, to troubleshoot and operationalise newly implemented open source programmes. Training strategies will need to be implemented that are aimed at providing basic skills to novice users, more advanced skills to expert users and in-depth training to developers. Structures to provide ongoing maintenance and support also need to be put into place. This includes ongoing updating, inducting new users, as well as to maintain and amend programmes. The tuXlabs can certainly play an important role in this regard.

Much of this can be achieved by utilising public-private partnerships, as is evidenced in the vibrant relationship that exists between the Western Cape Education Department and the Shuttleworth Foundation. The involvement of partners, however, should be monitored and coordinated. On numerous occasions, partners have moved into the education system and dealt directly with schools without the knowledge of the appropriate levels of the department. Whilst this may not always be a bad practice, often such interventions collapse because of a lack of support and perception that they are simply an “add on” and a “nice to have”.

I am appreciative of the advances in both the proprietary and open source movements. Of utmost importance is that we are able to give schools the opportunity to make an informed decision on the choice of using proprietary software and the use of open source software. Our challenge remains not only to develop, expand and ensure the inter-operatability of infrastructure, but also to make information available that can assist to make informed choices and decisions.

Government has a responsibility to improve the accessibility of ICTs to all. Our objective should be to make education available through technology and not simply only to make technology in itself more accessible and affordable to all schools. The real challenge we face is to gain substantial pedagogic, or teaching and learning value, from the use of open source. We are well aware of the economic value of open source, which includes the contribution it makes towards greater efficiency, saving of foreign currency and opportunities to stimulate small business development, to name a few. We are also aware of its contribution towards social development by, for example, providing greater access to information, being an instrument for developing information literacy and bridging the digital divide.

We should now not limit ourselves to using open source to provide us only with low-cost operating systems, utility programmes and web-browsers, but also to focus on open source software to develop a broad range of cognitive and affective learning competencies. Our challenges are to explore and find ways in which open source software can assist us with the implementation of outcomes-based curricula, to create greater access to a wider range learning resources, and to overcome the many barriers to learning that our learners face. We have to begin to shift our mindsets from the traditional view that only a teacher as a subject specialist in a classroom can offer a worthwhile learning experience. We need to expand that viewpoint to that of understanding that technology opens a whole new dimension of access to information that can assist our teachers and learners to gain knowledge and wisdom.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very inspiring example through Mark Shuttleworth and his Foundation, of what can be achieved through creative and innovative thinking, as well as through focused activity. These are the qualities we now have to align with the possibilities that are offered to us through open source software.

In conclusion, I would like to say that initiatives such as these give substance to many of the ideals and visions of the Department of Education. The achievements and the enthusiasm of open source software supporters, together with its potential advantages, lead to the belief that it has a promising future. If properly managed, its benefits to South African society and Africa can be considerable. Our challenge is now to find ways to derive greater educational value from open source software and, in so doing, materialise its many benefits in the critical area of human development. May I wish the Shuttleworth Foundation every success in the implementation of tuXlabs and in creating and supporting many more sites.

Thank you.

Issued by: Ministry of Education
9 February 2005
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education.gov.za)