The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has introduced a new e-Education Policy, which will guide future planning on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education in the province.

The WCED document contains nine strategic objectives that integrate the department’s current ICT-based projects, while providing a framework for further development. The framework is closely aligned to national and provincial strategies.

These include a new White Paper on e-Learning of the national Department of Education, and provincial strategies aimed at ensuring that learners are capable of participating in the global knowledge economy.

Building human and social capital, effective coordination, communication and improving financial governance are among the key priorities of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape’s iKapa Elihlumayo strategy.

We depend on ICT to meet all of these priorities.

iKapa Elihlumayo means the "growing Cape". The aim of the strategy is to fight poverty, create jobs and to ensure a "home for all" in the Western Cape.

Education has a crucial role to lay in developing the human resources we need to achieve the objectives of iKapa Elihlumayo, and to ensure that our citizens can participate in the global knowledge economy. We depend on ICT to make this possible.

The WCED’s e-Education Policy document reviews the WCED’s approach to using ICT in teaching, learning, assessment, administration and communication and highlights the issues involved in developing all ICT policies of the department.

The issues include equity, access, capacity building, norms and standards and funding.

The WCED has made considerable progress using limited funds and is currently exploring funding options with private sector partners to ensure sustainability.

The ultimate goal of the WCED is to ensure that all learners in General Education and Training (GET, Grades R to 9) are ICT capable by 2013. This policy objective is in line with the national White Paper on e-learning.

The WCED is already engaged in a wide range of projects that use ICT to enhance teaching and learning, education management and administration and communication.

These include the Khanya and Dassie projects in schools and Further and Education and Training (FET) colleges, the Telecommunications project, which has linked 99.9% of schools in the province to the internet, an "e-Curriculum" project, major web developments, and management and administration systems.

The Khanya project has received international recognition for its work in enhancing teaching and learning using ICT. The Khanya team plans to ensure that every high school in the Western Cape has a computer laboratory by the end of 2005.

The policy document provides a framework for integrating and building on the success of these projects to date, with a view to achieving the WCED’s long-term objectives for e-education.

The document says that e-education revolves around using ICT to accelerate the achievement of national goals in education. e-Education is about connecting all those involved in education, providing platforms and connecting learners and teachers to better information and ideas.

While celebrating its successes to date, the WCED is well aware of the work that remains to be done to bridge the digital divide in the province and the country as a whole.

According to the policy document, 72.7% of Americans have access to the internet in 2002, while only 6.4% of South Africans had access to and used the internet.

The WCED document lists nine strategic objectives for e-education, namely that:

• All managers, teachers and administrators at all levels of the education system must have the knowledge, skills and support they need to use ICTs in their respective jobs.

• The curriculum offered in education institutions in the Western Cape will be supported through appropriate, effective and engaging software, electronic content and online learning resources, and managers, educators and administrators who contribute significantly to these resources.

• Every educator and learner in the Western Cape must have access to ICT infrastructure to support the teaching and learning process and every institution must have access to ICT infrastructure to facilitate the administrative procedures.

• Every educational institution must have access to an educational network and the internet.

• The WCED will implement an e-administration strategy to improve levels of service delivery.

• Education institutions must work in partnership with their respective parent and stakeholder bodies and the wider communities to ensure shared knowledge of ICTs and extended opportunities for learning and development through ICTs.

• Research must continuously assess current practices, and explore and experiment with new technologies, methodologies and techniques that are reliable, cost-effective and will support educators and administrators in e-learning and e-administration.

• Appropriate structures at Head Office and EMDCs will manage and support all e-strategies.

• The WCED must maintain, develop and apply its capacity for internal and external communication using the latest developments in information and communication technology.

The WCED document looks at implementation strategies that follow the requirements of the national Department of Education, in terms of benchmarks and annual targets.

Issues include the number of schools involved and their "e-readiness", teacher training, content, ratios of learners to computers, technologies used in classrooms, internet connectivity and the types of facilities needing ICT support, such as science laboratories, libraries and media centres.

Funding permitting, the WCED plans to implement the policy in three phases, based on the provincial government’s three Medium Term Expenditure Framework cycles, being 2004/07, 2007/10 and 2010/13.

This is a daunting task, given the limited funds and the organisation involved. However, we have already demonstrated our capacity for innovation and success, and this will contribute significantly towards achieving our objectives.

This will benefit not only the Western Cape, but the rest of the country as well as we participate in national projects and share our share our experiences with our colleagues in other provinces.