Telematics for African Development Consortium
Distance Learning in South Africa
Peter Knight and Michael Moore have worked with a consortium of South African institutions to develop an ambitious package of distance learning projects intended to help South Africa's black population gain badly-needed skills using a combination of electronic media. The Telematics for African Development Consortium
was initially coordinated by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and includes UNISA (the largest distance learning university in
Africa), the University of Pretoria, Saint Albans College,
Telkom, and SABC (which was relaunched in February 1996 to include educational programming). The Consortium presented an initial group of projects to the World Bank's infoDev
Program, and is now coordinated by the South African Institute for
Distance Education (SAIDE)
On April 12, 1996 the World Bank's new infoDev announced its the first four grants, one of which was to the Consortium for a package of projects intended to improve access to education services by less favored communities in South Africa. Peter Knight was the task manager for this grant. More specifically this project includes:
- Content creation—Prototype academic English reading skills course for first-year English medium students at
UNISA and prototype Standard 7 biology syllabus and course for use by secondary level teachers and students at St. Albans College, both to be accessible as a free public service over the Internet once fully evaluated and tested (Part 2);
- Usage facilitation—Working demonstration of prototypes of curriculum creation and development tools and educational user interfaces for (a) the English reading skills course (above), (b) the Standard 7 biology course (above), and (c) informal essential information services to the disadvantaged community of Mamelodi providing the means to acquire education concerning basic life skills, transparent governance, and small business development; and
- Delivery infrastructure—Demonstration of a cost-effective, rapidly deployable prototype wireless system which is cellular in operation, controlled, managed, and interfaced to the public network to provide a fully operational pilot service.
Prototypes of these projects were demonstrated at the Information Society and Development
Conference, May 1996, Gallagher Estate, Midrand, SouthAfrica.
In the first week of April 1996, as part of the infoDev activity, CSIR staff participated in a study tour to Brazil, Egypt, and Russia led by Peter Knight, at that time chief of the World Bank’s Electronic Media Center. See some photographs of activities undertaken during these trips.
As part of a research project funded by a grant provided by the World Bank Research Committee, Professor Michael Moore (Director of the American Center for the Study of Distance Education at Pennsylvania State University) spent the month of May 1996 and the last half of July 1996 working with the Consortium in South Africa, and serving as an external advisor to the Commission on Technology-Assisted Education, working under the South African National Department of Education. Professor Moore's travel to South Africa was financed by UNESCO.
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Nebo Legoabe of CSIR presents the Consortium’s plans to AFRISTECH’95 in Dakar, Senegal, December 1995. |
Leonard Khumalo of Telkom |
Prudence Solomon of SABC with Nebo Leogoabe in Mamelode. |
 Bob Day andNick Van Der Merwe of CSIR confer with Michael Moore and Peter Knight at the World Bank in a CU-SeeMe videoconference over the Internet on January 29, 1996. |
 Teachers and visitors at Mamelodi Teacher Training Center with microwave links to CSIR and St. Alban's school watching segment of "Virtual Schools and Global Classrooms" filmed by SABC at their center. |
 InfoDev donors visit Mamelodi Training Center. |
 InfoDev donors at Telematics for African Development display during the Information Society and Development conference, July 1996. |
In July 1997 Michael Moore evaluated the second stage of the Consortium's Internet learning project, financed by the Canadian International Development Research Centre, and provided further advice to the South African National Department of Education, this time on legislation to implement the Technology-Enhanced Learning Initiative (TELI).
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