Isla Haddow Flood - Wikipedia Primary School - Case study South Africa, additional documentation, Wikimania Hong Kong 10/08/2013.

1. Primary Report
South Africa Case Study
Isla Haddow-Flood and Kelsey Wiens
WikiAfrica at the Africa Centre

2. Children at school in the Eastern Cape, 2013. photo: Sydelle Willow Smith courtesy of Equal Education

3. //the statistics
• Total population of South Africa (2011):
51,770,560
• # children under 19 in South Africa (2011):
19,103,566 37% of the population
• Total number of children aged 5-14 (2011):
9,414,637 or 18% of the population

4. Children at school in the Eastern Cape, 2013. photo: Sydelle Willow Smith courtesy of Equal Education

5. //the statistics
• Almost one in three or 29.6% is aged between
0-14 years.
• South Africa Public Primary Schools:
–14,456 Primary Schools
–5,992,863 Learners
–187,520 Teachers

6. Children at school in the Eastern Cape, 2013. photo: Sydelle Willow Smith courtesy of Equa

7. //challenges
• Low levels of literacy and numeracy
• Focus on Matric (Final) exams negate
concentration on building blocks of education
• Chaotic and expensive unsuccessful national
dedication to outcomes-based education
• Lack of trained teachers (in 2010 the pupil/
teacher ratio was 43:1)
• Over-crowded classrooms
• Educators do not work regular hours
• Poor teacher attendance and time inefficiency.

8. Children at school in the Eastern Cape, 2013. photo: Sydelle Willow Smith courtesy of Equal Education

9. //challenges
• School infrastructure challenges include:
– shortage of books and teaching materials
– Shortage of support and administrative staff
– Not all schools have access to running water, electricity or toilets
– Insufficient access for pupils to nutrition and sexual assault and
violence in school is on rise;
– A significant number of children are in grades that do not reflect their
age;
– Students are often not able to complete homework due to household
chores being seen as higher priority
– The impact of HIV is significant and debilitating.
• It is reasonable to presume that those problems might be
consistent in other African counties

10. Children at school in the Eastern Cape, 2013. photo: Sydelle Willow Smith courtesy of Equal Education

11. //OER in South Africa
• Siyavula
–In 2012 Siyavula, a Cape Town-based Open Access
publisher, began supplying the Department of Basic
Education with Grade 10, 11 and 12 Maths and Science
textbooks for R40 each.
• Nal’ibali
–Nal’ibali is isiXhosa for “here’s the story”, they are a
national reading-for-enjoyment campaign to designed
to spark children’s potential through storytelling and
reading

12. Children at school in the Eastern Cape, 2013. photo: Sydelle Willow Smith courtesy of Equal Education

13. //OER in South Africa
• OER4Schools
–CCE-funded ‘OER4Schools’ project started in August 2009 with a
pilot phase, that was completed in May 2010.They assessed the
feasibility of providing Open Educational Resources (OER) to ICT-
and Internet-equipped primary schools in Zambia, and of
supporting interactive forms of subject pedagogy with the new
resources.
• OER Africa
–OER Africa is an innovative initiative established by the South
African Institute for Distance Education (Saide) to play a leading
role in driving the development and use of Open Educational
Resources (OER) across all education sectors on the African
continent.

14. Zambian high schoolers and their mobile phones, by mLearning Africa CC-BY -SA

15. //Challenges to OER
• Infrastructure
-computers used as admin tools rather than teaching
devices
-School access to internet intermittent or non-existent
-Security and out of school access to technology
• Teacher knowledge, resources and time
constraints

16. IT training for kids who live in the surrounding farm areas of Stutterheim outside East London in the Eastern Cape. South Africa. Photo:Trevor Samson / World BankFigure

17. //Mobile in South Africa
• Mobile penetration in South Africa (by unique
subscribers) stood at 63.68%.
• Unique subscribers in 2012: 32,386,986.
• The current contract vs prepaid split on
connections is 19% contract vs. 81% prepaid.
• 8 million South Africans access the internet on their
mobiles.
–2.48 million do not have access to computers,
–5.42 million or 90% South Africa’s internet users use their
cellphones to go online.