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ICT barriers in SA schools

The main factors that prohibit the successful integrations of ICT in SA schools are as follows:

Lack of resources discourages teachers from integrating new technologies into education because ICT materials are not enough to accommodate all learners at the same time or during one lesson. Learners have to take shifts to access those materials.

Again it is of serious concern about lack of technical support that happens, ICT materials fails to connect to the internet or the system is very slow preventing the class activity or lesson delivery  to go smoothly.

Feather more ,lack of training for educators makes educators to be comfortable teaching in the traditional way. They become unwilling to try new strategies in teaching as they do not know how these technologies function.

During my school years we had no access to any technological material. The computers and printers were for the administrations and the principal to use. Even the educators were not allowed to use them. The admin officer was helping them with typing their work and making copies of the question papers.

It is important to intergarate ICT in South African school as it improves quality of learning and teaching in the classroom. It also increase effective communication between learners and their educators. The use of technology can help students to become knowledgeable and reduces the amount of direct instructions given to them.

My final school year.

My final school year at Malebo Secondary school

I did my final school year at a rural school called Malebo Secondary in Makometsane village, Mpumalanga province. The school is situated next to Moutse Primary Schoool, Rhenosterkop dam and Mkhombo nature reserve. I matriculated in the year 2012. The subjects that I passed include Sepedi home language, English first additional language, Life Orientation, Economics, Accounting, Maths literacy and Business Studies.

The location of my school Source taken from Google map

There was no educational technology used.  Only my Grade 12 Economics educator would use his personal laptop to make research about certain lessons we did not understand in class and download previous question papers and distribute them amongst us. He was always encouraging our parents to buy laptops for us because he believed that it is important to have access to a computer in your final year at school. Luckily my parents could afford to buy a laptop for me. I was able to access information easily and that helped me become the best learner in economics. Neither than that we were writing on black boards and submitting hand written assignments.  Only the school administration officer and the principal had computers.

My friends did not want to complete their metric at Malebo because the school produces less than 80% metric pass rate. It also has no laboratory and computer lab. But I used to tell them that the overall performance of the school does not determine your metric results, what matters is you should strive to achieve better grades individually. The metric pass rate of 2012 was 85% which is currently a new record for the school. The following year the school produced a leaner who got 5 A`s and 2 B`s. It was fun and interesting to be part of the class of 2012. If there were educational technologies we could have achieved a better percentage.