WELCOME REMARKS AT THE PRESIDENTIAL LAUNCH
OF
OPERATION
PHAKISA:
ICT
IN
EDUCATION.
BIRCHWOOD HOTEL, EKURHULENI.
02 OCTOBER 2015
Programme Director, Deputy Minister Enver Surty;
His Excellency, The President of the Republic of South Africa,
Honourable President Jacob Zuma;
Minister Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency responsible for
Performance Monitoring and Evaluation;
Minister of Basic Education, Minister Angie Motshekga;
Ministers and Deputy Ministers;
Fellow Premiers and MECs for Education from other provinces;
Executive Mayors of Municipalities;
Trade Union and Business Leaders;
Members of the Diplomatic corps;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Once more, it is an honour to be given this opportunity to
welcome you today to yet another exciting initiative of
Operation Phakisa which focuses on ICT in Education.
1
This follows the launch of Operation Phakisa in various sectors
such as the Ocean Economy and the Ideal Clinic. Phakisa is
becoming a daily reality of governing with urgency and
purpose.
Operation Phakisa is a ground-breaking initiative that gives
effect to the call for radical social and economic transformation
made by our President at the start of the Fifth Administration.
This is one of the major steps being taken to implement the
National Development Plan, Vision 2030.
Mr President, in response to your call, we in Gauteng have
adopted a Ten-pillar programme of radical Transformation,
Modernisation and Re-industrialisation as a provincial plan to
implement the NDP in the concrete conditions of our province.
One of the pillars of our provincial plan is to modernise the way
in which we deliver public services. In particular, we are rolling
out e-government and e-services through the deployment ICT
to enable government to serve the people better.
In this regard, our provincial government is pioneering bold
initiatives in e-learning, e-health, e-policing and e-government
in general as part of our provincial plan to implement the NDP.
2
Today, we are very pleased that you are here Mr President, to
launch Operation Phakisa focusing on ICT in Education.
We are humbled that our province is one of key laboratories of
Phakisa on technology-enabled education. We are a laboratory
of a future ICT-enabled education.
As you are aware, we have been in the forefront of the elearning revolution through what our MEC for Education has
dubbed the “paperless classroom” and the “school of the
future”.
There are many lessons we have learnt in the process, with
many challenges and exciting opportunities. I would to share
with you some of the key lessons and challenges of this
exciting journey into the future:
 On the positive side, many good signs of the benefits of
ICT-enabled education are beginning to emerge: school
attendance by both teachers and learners has improved
where it was problematic and there is greater interest
and excitement; teachers and learners come earlier and
stay longer at school; dropout rate is declining and some
learners are returning to schools; lots of self-training by
teachers and self-teaching through access to web-based
materials such as e-textbooks and e-novels; learners
3
are reporting that the tablets and connectivity helps
them with access to best sources of information
available globally, without the pain of going through
libraries;
 Challenges: Improving infrastructure and look-and-feel
in our schools, expanding connectivity, teacher training,
security of the ICT infrastructure and the cost of the
rollout are some of the major challenges.
Implementation is the best way to learn and improve the plan.
With humility, we hope the valuable lessons we bring will
improve our chances of success in the nation-wide rollout of
ICT in Education.
However, there is no turning back on e-learning revolution. We
can only expand the opportunities of e-learning to benefit all
learners in our country, especially those in rural and township
schools. For the first time, our children wake up looking forward
to go to school. The morale is high among the teachers
involved in this initiative.
Welcome to the home of Homo naledi and welcome to the
future! We are willing to be the laboratory where the experiment
in e-learning is carried out in real time.
4
Are phakiseng!
I thank you!
5