20. Present future national
strategic objectives and
ICT’s Professional aptitude
STRENGTHEN RESEARCH
BUILD STRONG INNOVATIONS
COMPETE INTERNATIONALLY
22. BIBLIOGRAPHY
UNESCO (2002). Information and Communication Technologies in
Teacher Education: A Planning Guide. Paris: UNESCO
UNESCO-IICBA (2008). ICT Standards for African Teachers—Needs
Assessment: Teacher Training Institutions in Focus. Addis Ababa: ECA.
The Bill of Rights of the constitution of Republic of South Africa.
(1996). Government gazette. (No.19347).
Department of Education (DoE). 1996. South African Schools Act,
Government gazette (No.84 of 1996)
Department of Education (DoE).2002.Education for all: The South African
Assessment Report. Pretoria
Notas del editor
The knowledge society is increasingly the key to success and thus to sustainable for economic and social development that benefits us all. Innovation, which fuels new job creation and economic growth, is quickly becoming the key factor in global competitiveness. Innovations fundamentally means coming up with new ideas about how to do things better or faster, also reshaping the global economy and societies as a whole and accommodate everyone by trying to align everyone on one level to achieve these predicted outcomes.
To attain the above mentioned we as society need to understand and inculcate with our new knowledge that Knowledge has value, but so too does knowledge about knowledge, knowing that knowledge has value and this is our responsibility to make it known, what are the benefits of this new knowledge and how will it be beneficial to one . In moving forward we try to achieve in a nutshell a society or community that has knowledge that understanding and learning is a continuous process and the benefits of this is to defeat poverty and all the positives that bring about a stronger society and economy.
“ Your alarm clock ringing, electric toothbrush, toaster popping”, these are all movements of technology through the years up to the 21 st century and moving forward, if you think about what you do every day that involves technology, the list is amazing large and skeptical. Much of what we do in some way involves technology that we do not much notice and likely do not understand. Some educators and researchers believe that the efficiencies that technology provides us benefit us in all kinds of ways, some educators disagree and believe technology is almost like a walking stick that balances us and if this stick is removed we will be paralyzed, For example, when people make the decision to go to the video store in their cars rather than by bike, they get convenience and speed but they are trading away exercise and fresh air. The same idea of gains and losses holds for using educational technology. When students read from the screen instead of from a hard copy of a book, what are the gains and losses?, with seeing this we can see that there are more benefits than negatives, and the idea should be pushed forward fully.
The word pervasive refers to: “something present or noticeable or even persistent” therefore pervasiveness of technology in education leads us to our current educational technology, what examples are there in education which demonstrates technology. According to the white paper 7 on e-Education document (2004; 19) it stresses that “The purpose behind all this is not just to build technical skills, but also to use ICTs to extend and enrich educational experiences across the curriculum. The objective is to build digital and information literacy so that all learners become confident and competent in using technology to contribute to an innovative and developing South African society”
SSchools nowadays, when looking and comparing to schooling in our parents years, I can say, see and hear that there are major improvement we also sometimes called “spoilt” but this spoilt is for a good cause that is in fact beneficial and can reap a lot of benefits in the future. In almost all of the schools today in South Africa consists of computer labs, used to educate their learners with regards to technology and computer literacy, they have science labs for science learners. Educational technology is in a fast lane moving forward fast at a rapid pace, when people from other countries look into South Africa and they reflect back to where we came from compared to now you can see that there is an enormous improvement in educational technology.
The University of Johannesburg is an institution that take this ICT initiative , and uses this in their teaching, and myself as a student at (UJ) this technology is much appreciated, and is really beneficial as this allows us to be more creative as we know what is the capabilities of the resources and the educators feed our creativity by using technologies that make our learning much more fun than what we were used to in school, like learning from the chalk board , at (UJ) we spoilt for choice in a sense comparing to other universities that my friends attend that I will not mention. the University of Johannesburg uses software’s and applications such as: edulink , ulink to post lecture slides notes and also so we can hand in our assignments as well as complete tests online and this is beneficial if one is ill and cannot make it to campus to hand in an assignment.
The Education for All movement is commitment to provide quality education for all children, youth and adults; this was established more than eight years ago, in Dakar. With this drive, concepts and ideas were created to promote a healthy and friendly environment in schools and to address the six major goals they set that would elevate inequality in schools worldwide which were mandated and has being due to be achievable by 2015.
The Six internationally agreed education goals aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.the first goal is to expand and improve primary childhood care and education, especially for the vulnerable children and youth, the second goal is aiming to ensure that all children particularly females, and children and youth in difficult circumstances and those belonging to minority groups to receive access to free compulsory education by 2015, third goal is to promote learning and life skills for young people and adults, fourth, fifth and goal number 6 : is to increase adult literacy by 50%. The other factor is to achieve gender equality and also the quality of education. The first goal which is early childhood education is of central major importance, however before it was ignored but since the conference of EFA Global Monitoring Report, education for early childhood it has been a major focus, up to the point that they introduced programs that will help develop learners mentally, physically, emotionally and socially. This is introduced to eliminate disadvantage and prepare children for schooling. Primary education is not enough, this occurs because basic education did not match quality and equity. For instance, many countries ranked low! because unequal learning achievement in language and mathematics characterize their achievement. Congested classrooms and insufficient textbooks also contribute. However the is a solution to this problem, goals or solutions that have been suggested to help the educational structure.
The vision of South African education is to give all people (young and old) access to lifelong learning, education and training opportunities. The department of basic education mission is to promote relevant and cutting edge quality education for the 21 st century. The basic education values includes the following; people, excellence teamwork, learning and innovation.
In 1996 the constitution of the Republic of South Africa required education to be transformed and democratized in accordance with the values of human dignity, equality, human rights and freedom, non-racism and non-sexism. This was to access basic education. According to the South African Schools Act (SASA) (1996), it promotes access to quality and democratic governance in the schooling system. Its purpose is to ensure that all learners have right of access to quality education without discrimination, and makes schooling compulsory for children aged 7 to 15.
It provides for two types of schools, namely independent schools and public schools. The provision in the Act for democratic school governance, through school governing bodies, is now effected in public schools countrywide. The school funding norms, outlined in SASA, priorities redress and target poverty with regard to the National Curriculum Statement Grades R to 12
a policy statement for learning and teaching in schools ,replaced the policy document, Item bodies the vision for general education to move away from a racist, apartheid, rote model of learning and teaching, to a liberating, nation-building and learner-centered, outcomes-based initiative Insufficient benchmarked measurement of learning outcomes; Quality of learning across all grades and phases The quality of learning across all grades and phases of the basic education sector is less than satisfactory and this poor performance is most prevalent in our poor communitie
The purpose of the South African ICT strategy is to create an enabling system for the advancement of ICT innovation, within the context of the broader national strategy. It aims to improve economic competitiveness and the quality of life for South Africans which in turn will boost our countries economy, thus helping to elevate poverty and the struggle of free education for all, will be an achievable goal.
ICT strategic objectives are, to develop focused and strengthened ICT research activities to achieve world-class research standards competencies in all areas, to build a strong and robust ICT innovation environment, with an indigenous ICT sector that is competitive and growing, to create advanced human capital (ICT skills base) for research and industry purpose, as well as the proliferation of ICT in other sectors of the economy that can compete and relate on an international stage.
ICT is a progressive reflecting on the progression expected of teachers as their professional knowledge, skills and attitudes develop and they demonstrate increasing effectiveness in their roles. The research basis for ICT, it is a survey that indicates general lack of human resource capacity to provide ICT training and equipment servicing, and also the gap between the availability of ICT infrastructure and the ability of agrarian societies. ICT-enhanced Teacher Standards for Africa.
Bibliography UNESCO (2002). Information and Communication Technologies in Teacher Education: A Planning Guide. Paris: UNESCO UNESCO-IICBA (2008). ICT Standards for African Teachers—Needs Assessment: Teacher Training Institutions in Focus. Addis Ababa: ECA. The Bill of Rights of the constitution of Republic of South Africa. (1996). Government gazette. (No.19347). Department of Education (DoE). 1996. South African Schools Act, Government gazette (No.84 of 1996) Department of Education (DoE).2002.Education for all: The South African Assessment Report. Pretoria