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The skills gap
An international survey (of 34 countries) conducted by Grant Thornton shows 48% of South African private businesses see lack of skills as the biggest constraint to business growth. The corresponding figure in the construction sector was 72%, while the figure for the services sector was 52%. It was clear from the survey that the skills shortage was a global concern – for the first time in the history of the survey workforce issues topped the chart as a global concern for growth. However, South African businesses were the hardest hit – about 10 percentage points higher than the global average. A lack of skills development, emigration and crime are some of the factors which contribute to this problem. When asked about the areas of regulation that had the biggest impact on the ability to grow, labour laws were ranked number one at 28%.
Since 2000, 340 promising young women scientists from 35 countries have received national fellowships from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the cosmetics company L’Oréal, as part of their efforts to foster global scientific cooperation. The fellowships allow doctoral and post-doctoral female scientists to conduct research in laboratories outside their home countries, and the research topics selected often relate to local populations’ needs or original fields of research. Four of the latest recipients are from countries new to the programme: Gabon, Mongolia, Nepal and Slovenia. The other countries of origin of the winners are Mozambique, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Italy and the Netherlands.
Teachers’ salaries and performance
The New York Times reports that a New York City charter school, set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights, will examine an age-old question in education: Is significantly higher pay for teachers the key to improving schools? Teachers will be paid $125 000, plus a potential bonus based on performance. That is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, and some 21⁄2 times more than the national average teacher salary. The school’s first principal wishes to put into practice the view of a growing number of researchers, viz, that teacher quality, not outstanding principals or laptop computers, is the crucial ingredient for success. In exchange for their high salaries, teachers at the new school will work a longer day and year and take on responsibilities that usually fall to other staff members. The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and 480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social workers. Its classes will have 30 students. In contrast to the norm, the principal will be paid $35 000 less than the teachers. Michael Duffy, the city’s executive director for charter schools, said that some Education Department staff members were sceptical, wondering, ‘If you’re putting all of your resources into teachers in the classroom, are you shorting some of the other aspects of what a good school requires?’
E-mail as a teaching tool
Across the world, e-mail – arguably the biggest growth area in Internet usage today – is increasingly being used for everyday communication. If used effectively, e-mail can be a wonderful tool for learning because it allows usage with practically anyone, anywhere. It is now suggested that the use of e-mail will herald a shift in pedagogical methods, providing academics with an opportunity to make their teaching better, to allow them to teach in different ways and to reach more students; in other words, it allows for the maximisation of learning. For example, in one investigation of the effectiveness of e-mail as a communication and instructional aid between instructors and students, it was established that there was empirical evidence supporting the usefulness of e-mail as a promising aid to promote student cognitive growth pertaining to computer knowledge and skills. In another qualitative case study of undergraduate students in an online course, it was observed that e-mail allows for improved communication and gives students the opportunity to ask more questions to their instructor. The researcher observed that the use of e-mail could create a sense of anonymity that potentially allows for greater participation by students. However, for the potential of this new system of education delivery to be successful, educators must make the commitment to merge technology into the curriculum.
The digital divide
A report released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows that the digital divide between rich and poor countries is growing. While developed countries are expected to reach a broadband penetration rate of 28% in 2008, the corresponding rate for developing countries is just 3%. According to UNCTAD official Anh-Nga Tran-Nguyen, the gap has widened for broadband ‘due to the fast pace of technological development and associated high costs.’ UNCTAD has highlighted broadband as a vital tool in economic development, going so far as to claim that it is so vital for businesses that it should be considered a utility comparable to water and electricity. UNCTAD did, however, note some progress in narrowing other elements of the digital divide since its 2006 report, particularly with regard to cellphone technology.
For 2008, it expects developing countries to reach a mobile penetration rate of nearly 50%, although this is still far behind developed countries which have reached saturation point. Cell phone subscribers almost tripled in developing countries over the last five years to comprise 58% of global subscribers. ‘Mobile handsets provide a starting point for digital literacy,’ Tran-Nguyen said. In SA the Digital Doorway project, recently launched at Ntshongweni, in the rural west of the eThekwini municipality represents a move that could provide the blueprint for the rollout of cheap, fast Internet access to all city residents.
Five Digital Doorway multimedia kiosks have been installed in the area, each comprising four computers clustered together wirelessly to give residents access to services. Four of the units have been installed in schools and one has been set up at the community's resource centre, providing thousands of locals with access to Open Office. They will also benefit from educational and scientific programmes, 10 000 books from the Project Gutenberg library, elements of the online Wikipedia encyclopaedia, and other software. The initiative is a collaborative effort between the Rural Area Based Management Programme, the national Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Meraka Institute. The Digital Doorway project was first successfully piloted in the rural area of Cwili, in the Eastern Cape five years ago. After the success of the initial project the DST supported the deployment of additional units in different parts of the country with the focus being put on rural and township areas.
Open source tools
A Russian schoolteacher, Alexander Ponosov, who was put on trial for using pirated Microsoft programs, has launched a campaign against the software giant's global domination. He has founded a lobby group, the aim of which is to reduce Russia's dependence on software produced by firms like Microsoft and instead promote so-called open source software.
Internet entrepreneurs Mark Shuttleworth and Jimmy Wales launched a formal declaration urging governments and publishers to make publicly funded educational materials freely available on the Internet, a move that could cause a revolution in education, given the fact that there are more than 100 000 ‘open’ educational resources available on the Internet, enabling a movement towards using the Internet as a collaborative tool in teaching.
Meanwhile, the European Union has announced that it will invest $1m in a study to find the best open source tools for use in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The grant was awarded to a consortium of 11 members, including Canonical, backers of Ubuntu Linix, and the University of the Western Cape. The aim of the research is to explore the use of free and open source software (FLOSS) as a development tool in these regions, and to investigate the technical, business and socio-political environment needed for the growth of FLOSS use in the target regions. The two-year project will be conducted by a project team of research institutes, government agencies, private companies and non-governmental organisations in Argentina, Cambodia, China, Ghana, India, South Africa, Spain, UK and the Netherlands.
Social networking
BusinessWeek reports that many people are spending less time on social networking sites (such as MySpace and Facebook) or signing off altogether. The average amount of time that each user spends on such sites fell by 14% in the four months up to January 2008, while the number of users of MySpace fell from a peak of 72m in October 2007 to 68.9m in December. The main reasons put forward is that the MySpace generation may be getting annoyed with advertisements, and rather bored with profile pages. Analysts say that social networks have some of the lowest response rates on the Web – marketers claim that only 4 in 10 000 people who see their advertisements on social networking sites click on them, compared with 20 in 10 000 across the Web.
Meanwhile, leading Internet scholars at Harvard Law School will head a task force to explore the safety of users at MySpace and other popular online sites in the wake of growing fears that youngsters are becoming the targets of sexual predators. The group will have a broad mandate to explore technical ways to keep children safe - not only from sexual predators but also from online bullies and adult content. Procedures for verifying users' ages are expected to be among the task force's discussion. Schools of the future Mike Lloyd, Microsoft’s schools solution specialist, visited SA recently to introduce his company’s School of the Future project. Launched in the USA in 2005, the fundamental aim of the project is to ensure that education systems are attuned to the demands posed by the changing skills requirements of the globalised knowledge economy and the concomitant development in ICT. Thus, the Schools of the Future project espouses educating children by integrating technology with education, by making teaching increasingly computer-assisted, and by redesigning school buildings to create learning space more conducive to developing the kind of thinking and learning the digital economy wants.
Learning through technology
A series of panel discussions was held at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show to explore whether electronic connectedness is valuable for children. A key question asked was: Are computers and electronic toys providing creative new outlets for children to play, socialise and learn; or does staring at screens all day curb the developing mind and impede critical thinking skills? The answer was mixed – but it does seem to be important for parents to intelligently monitor their children's use of computers and communication devices. For instance, parents should regard technology as another material that children have to learn to explore, much like a sandbox. There might be good reason to ban PCs from children's bedrooms, but arbitrary rules may be counterproductive. For example, limiting play on a complex computer game to an hour daily might be the equivalent of banning the game entirely.
ICT in the classroom: international evidence
Turkey. Teachers and administrative staff at a private school felt themselves to be competent in using the ICT available at the school, but that guidelines to bring about successful integration were lacking. Students reported that ICT is not utilised sufficiently in their classes. Clearly, continuous improvement and revision of a technology plan is important.
The Netherlands. Students in pre-university education, third-graders and non-minority students appear to have better Internet skills and a more advantageous home computer use than students in pre-vocational education, first-graders and minority students, respectively.
Australia. ICT is largely being integrated in ways that support and supplement existing classroom practices. Nonetheless, teachers need support to develop new approaches to teaching, and greater access to reliable technology before the potential of powerful learning environments is realised.
USA. The quantity of technology use alone is not critical to student learning. ‘How much’ matters only once ‘How’ is established. In fact, when the quality of technology use is not ensured, more time on computers may do more harm than good. More research needs to be conducted to identify which technology uses are most educationally meaningful; and to discover effective ways of promoting technology uses that have positive impacts in schools.