Inside South Africa's First Fully Digital Government School

An anonymous reader writes "State education in South Africa has been described as 'in crisis'. A recent report (pdf) says that even the top 20% of private schools only achieve the same results as the average in other middle income countries like Chile. In maths and science, teachers often can't answer and don't understand the questions they have to set their pupils. One government school in Johannesburg, however, has taken an enormously bold step and gone 'fully digital' in a move that others may follow. Since January, all pupils have been required to buy a tablet computer instead of textbooks — which, astonishingly, saves families around R500 ($50) in the first year and R1500 ($150) in subsequent years, a huge amount of money for many families there. The teachers are confident that that learning outcomes are better as well — and if the end of year tests in a month's time are positive, other schools may follow suit."

Comments

"Saved" them money?

[oic0]

Were they not able to sell or trade used books before? I know in college they change books like every year to squeeze more money out of you, but I figured in south africa they might assume the people cant quite afford it and use the same book year after year.

Re:"Saved" them money?

[beelsebob]

Were they not able to sell or trade used books before? I know in college they change books like every year to squeeze more money out of you, but I figured in south africa they might assume the people cant quite afford it and use the same book year after year.

If you think changing the book is to squeeze money out of you, and not... you know, because you've finished learning from it and need something else to learn, then you're in trouble. Using the same book year after year is probably one of the reasons the learning outcomes are so terrible :P

CA has lessons learned

[Zeorge]

The students quickly used the tablet for entertainment vice studying. Something like a Kindle paper white on the other hand would be better. Too slow to be used for anything other than reading and making notes.

Question 1

[DiamondGeezer]

Q1: Your schoolchildren are not achieving as much as they should because your teachers don't have the knowledge to answer the advanced questions of your brightest students.

Do you
a) immediately mandate a digital policy in order to save money on books or
b) get better teachers

Answers to the South African Dept of Education.

Hint: one of these answers might be racist.

Whose opinion again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The teachers are confident that that learning outcomes are better as well...

Wait, the opinion of these people:

In maths and science, teachers often can't answer and don't understand the questions they have to set their pupils.

So, they have incompetent teachers and they think replacing textbooks with tablets is going to fix that.

The one thing that the school insists on, however, is that each lesson starts with a five minute test completed on the tablet screen which is based on the last lesson.

Back in my day, we had a quiz every class and we got the results the next class. Then the teacher would go over any material that the class didn't learn - or we would go over the answers in class and another student graded. This was all uphill - both ways - in the snow! And the only "tablets" we had were our Flintstones vitamins!

It became a competition and most of our grades went up.

This was all paper and pencil - you know the shit brown recycled paper that we used to get in public schools.

I tell ya, technology is not a panacea for education - although, it sure helps the bottom line for the tech manufacturers.