While the Department of Education says it will continue with its troubled Dinaledi schools project, analysts believe the project has failed.
Education specialists and the Democratic Alliance's shadow spokesman for higher education, Wilmot James, say that, while the project was initially a good idea, it has turned out to be a failure.
The Dinaledi schools form part of an education department initiative to improve the maths and science pass rates in the country, produce over 50 000 passes on higher grade in 2009, and ultimately increase the number of students entering the engineering and ICT fields.
While learners in the 500 Dinaledi schools accounted for over 50 000 of matriculants writing maths and science exams, in 2008, pass rates have been disappointing.
The 2008 matric results revealed that the schools had failed to meet their target and the education department is yet to release the 2009 figures in light of poor results. The national matric pass rate stands at 60.7%, a 2% decrease from the 62.5% pass rate achieved in 2008. Overall, pass rates in science, maths, mathematical literacy and accounting dropped.
Salim Akoojee, education analyst, says government's push to increase ICT access is important, but the project has not proved sustainable and has been troubled by management issues.
“We need to be realistic about what we can achieve with our resources. We need to begin to be realistic on what we can actually do,” explains Akoojee.
Scrap Sentech
According to James, the wrong schools were chosen and teacher selections were also inadequate. While the project was initially set to receive R120 million, it has only received R30 million so far, he says.
Sentech was also tasked with connecting the schools to its R3.5 billion wholesale national wireless broadband network, but has failed to do so, following funding troubles.
Akoojee notes that Internet connectivity and broadband access have always been problematic and expensive, but that government should relook its strategy.
Marian Shinn, Democratic Alliance shadow deputy minister of science and technology, says no solutions have been found. According to her, communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda promised a decision on the Dinaledi schools network by the end of 2009. She says the minister's silence is an indication that the Department of Communications has failed to come up with a technological solution and business plan that would get National Treasury approval.
“The broadband network supplier must be chosen in a competitive and transparent manner. Sentech has had the monopoly on this solution for the past three years. They must now step aside for more energetic and innovative network providers,” she comments.
Train teachers
Graeme Bloch, education specialist with the Development Bank of Southern Africa, says there needs to be more emphasis on teachers.
“ICT is only secondary to good teachers, it is not an add-on... While we have a satellite that went up into space, our physics marks went down. We need to improve our foundation,” he notes.
In 2008, the Dinaledi schools were required to achieve at least 20%, or 10 000 of the national target of 50 000 learners passing high-level maths and science. However, 54 of the schools had fewer than 20 maths passes and science passes fell below target.
Both Shinn and Akoojee note that the project should be put on hold and the entire initiative needs to be re-evaluated.
“The objectives seem to be pretty wide on this project. It essentially boils down to what development path government wants to take. ICT access is important, but the strategy needs to be questioned,” says Akoojee.
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